Colorblind
by LookAtMyShoes
Summary: - and her body is a canvas for bruises but Alex can paint prettier pictures than whoever did this to her. ;Alex/Mitchie; Femslash.
1. Chapter 1

Alex/Mitchie-ness. Yay. (:

This is my first try with these two. Actually, I lied, this is like my fifth try, because I have several oneshot-ish type things written of them, but none of them are finished or even close to being finished. And then this popped into my head, which made me neglect everything else.

Anyway, have fun reading and let me know what you think. My first chapters are always much shorter than the following ones, so all the segments after this will be much longer.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing.

--x--

_Colorblind_

_Chapter One;_

Alex knows that everything seems, by default and common belief, darker and worse at night. But she's more than halfway convinced that the crescent, violet moons below this girl's eyes would look just as purple in the daylight. This nameless girl. This girl whose eyes have so much depth, they almost need a name of their own and Alex wants to know, she wants a name to call her, to soothe her.

Because she was unused to stumbling upon a broken and beaten body, so small and fragile, slumped against a concrete staircase on the sidewalks of ruthless New York city. Violence wasn't uncommon, no, but girls like this, this girl without a name, don't live on the receiving ends of fists and words so angry they almost bled. Girls like her have people that love them, even though Alex knew no more about her than what her quiet, strangled sobs sounded like past midnight. Girls like her don't bleed bruises. Girls like her smile real smiles that reach their eyes.

Alex couldn't understand why, then, was her skin paper thin with bruises infecting the pale pallets of her arms and legs, like splattered paint that was never meant to be spilled.

The streetlamp has an orange glow and an erratic flicker that seems almost deafening and Alex's ears don't hear the traffic of cars and footsteps because this broken girl is crying and Alex wants her to smile. She doesn't stop her knees from bending as she crouches down beside her, biting her lip while her heart rips into two separate chambers with different goals. One dead set on finding who did this to her and throttling them until they turned to colors so indistinguishable, it'd be impossible to find the start of one bruise and the end of a next. The other side of her is swayed by compassion and a concern that was tied like a drawstring from her chest to this girl. If she pulled too hard, the string would snap and she'd collapse.

So she stays close.

The girl isn't fully aware, isn't fully conscious. Alex can tell because they're making eye contact, but her head is lolling forward in a way that indicates she'll pass out any moment.

Alex pulls her phone out of her pocket, her thumb grazing familiar numbers quickly, frantically, as her other hand smoothes chestnut hair away from the other girl's face and she sees her tortured eyes momentarily slip shut. In a brief moment of panic, Alex lifts her chin and blurts a chain of fragmented words that she doesn't have time to think through.

"Hey, stay with me - eyes open, chin up," she says gently, but urgently.

She's got her cell phone cradled between her neck and shoulder and she could almost scream in anticipation because now is not the time for Harper to neglect a phone call. Just as she debates ending the call and dialing again, she hears the familiar click on the other end.

"Hello - ?" the voice is groggy, though not irritated.

"Harper, I need you to come get me." Alex's hands are cradling the stranger's face, her thumb brushing over bruises, new and old.

"Alex, do you have any idea what time it is -"

"I know, I know. I'll make this up to you, I promise," she knows she's saying it to Harper, but her eyes say it just as loudly to the girl in front of her. She wants to make it up to this torn soul, to wash away the blood on her skin and whisper away the scars she knows will be there. Alex doesn't know her, but that does nothing to extinguish the dire need to help her.

She hears Harper clamor out of bed and she couldn't ask for a better best friend. A sigh of relief heaves her shoulders up then down and she feels a little bit lighter. Her mystery charge twitches.

"I'm right outside the Westmont apartments," she adds, letting out a nervous hum as her companion coughs and drags in a breath like the oxygen is too thick.

"Westmont? I thought you were -"

" - it doesn't matter, just, get here quick, please?" Alex tactfully avoids explaining why she's near Westmont when she's supposed to be on the other side of town, with a boy. A boy she'd rather not think about, a boy that left her to walk home at nearly 1 a.m., a boy that she almost wants to thank, regardless of the way her jaw sets when she thinks about him, because if it weren't for his incredible ditching skills, Alex never would have found this girl. And she's not sure why she's grateful for that, but she is.

"Alright, ten minutes, tops," Harper answers, not questioning, and Alex appreciates it.

"Thanks, Harper."

She means it.

"What am I here for?" she asks the rhetorical question, though Alex could sift for days through all the things Harper had done for her. Listing them would take even longer. "I'll see you in a few."

Alex mutters goodbye and slips the phone back into her pocket, her other hand staying occupied with the silken but tangled hair of the other girl.

"You're gonna be okay," Alex notices that she's no longer shying away, she's not startled by Alex's gentle touches and she takes that as a good sign. She also knows it could be because the girl is too tired to fight against anything. "I'm gonna get you out of here. I don't know who did this to you, but -" Alex pauses, dawning on the protective edge in her voice. Protective of a complete stranger. "-but, they aren't going to hurt you anymore. I promise."

Alex sees her lips twitch, like she was going to say something.

"My name is Alex," she says softly, hoping it would trigger an introduction from her.

The girl painted with bruises gave a small, crooked smile and Alex could do nothing to prepare herself for the tsunami that surged over her from the almost unnoticeable gesture. The smile was so slight, but it was meaningful and Alex felt like she'd just witnessed something rare, something mark-the-calendar worthy.

Because as soon as the smile had appeared it disappeared, along with her eyes as her lashes drew the curtain over them and her lips parted for her to breathe.

Alex moves from in front of her to sit beside her, sliding a hand into hers and linking their fingers one by one. The pull in her chest from before was there again and she felt twice as defensive. She can feel the other girl's dull pulse as her thumb grazes the inside of her wrist.

"Mitchie."

It's so quiet and scratchy that Alex almost doesn't hear, but she does, and the name is branded to all sides of her mind as her head snaps to look at the girl beginning to slump against her shoulder. The anxiety induced cold, steel walls of her stomach melt under the voice of the stranger and her body is a canvas for bruises but Alex can paint prettier pictures than whoever did this to her.

Mitchie.


	2. Chapter 2

Wow, I honestly wasn't expecting much feedback on this at all, thank you guys _so_ much! Reviews make my face happy. Like this. (:

**Disclaimer: **I own neither WOWP or CR.

--x--

_Colorblind_

_Chapter Two;_

Alex tried the name on her own tongue, both to alert Mitchie that she had heard her, and to simply taste the unusual name.

"Mitchie."

It was a name that rolled easily, like a single wave among many, like she'd said it for years. Familiarity without the experience. And Alex found herself wanting experience, she wanted to know this girl. She wanted to know why her body was underappreciated and why her smile was hollow.

She's also curious as to why she's being trusted to hold her hand.

The concrete is cold and uninviting and she wonders how long Mitchie had been here, wonders how many people had walked by without a wayward glance. She represses a scoff. The disgust is apparent on her face and Mitchie notices, unsure until Alex brings her eyes to meet her own and the anger is gone, washed over with apology and a pool of conflicting emotions that Mitchie can't seem to place.

She's tired and dizzy, but she decides right away that she likes Alex's eyes. They're raw and expressive, almost like peering through an open gateway straight to the beating muscle in her chest that so few people manage to affect.

Alex squeezes the hand in her own and she doesn't earn any sort of reaction from it, though she doesn't expect to. Her eyes cast down to their entwined hands and her brows furrow, creasing deep frustrated lines into her forehead as she absorbs Mitchie's bleeding knuckles and how a few of them are nearly black. Pale white skin is not meant to be plagued with ebony. She tries to picture Mitchie without bruises, but the visual won't come to mind. The wall of wounds is too sturdy, too high for her to overcome, even as her eyes close. She's only met with sickly marks.

Her eyes snap open as Mitchie tears her hand away to grip at her side with a sharp gasp that cuts through Alex's ears and she turns to see why her thoughts were brought to such an abrupt end.

Red.

It seeps around and through the crevices of Mitchie's parted fingers that are failing to conceal the blood and her teeth are biting down on her tongue to hold the noises in her throat. Alex watches helplessly for a moment as her mind tries to trace back to how her wound could have been newly irritated.

And then it's the second time she speaks, and Alex listens so carefully, filtering out the extra noise that a nightlife city like New York provides. Mitchie's groggy words sound threatened and the words sound as though they've barely been able to push through her throat. Alex's eyes scan Mitchie's face, left then right and back again, constantly searching and analyzing her movements. She can't help but feel mechanic, the way she isn't blinking and how her lungs are stretching like thin rubber on a held breath. Alex listens _so carefully_.

"I started to fall asleep," Mitchie answers the unasked question, wincing. She sounds so small. "I leaned a little too far…" her voice fades, cracking on her last word.

Alex hardly lets her finish before hooking her fingers underneath the hem of her own shirt and pulling it up over her head, thankful that she had decided to wear a black tank top beneath it, though she probably would have still done the same thing even if she'd gone without wearing layers tonight. Smoothing the wrinkles from the clothing in her hands, Alex bites the side of her bottom lip as her eyes glance from the shirt to the splotch of blood that seems to be growing through Mitchie's shirt. She can't begin to fathom the horrors this girl has woken to and she wonders if Mitchie has a dreamland to escape smears of scarlet and angry screams. Something tells her this isn't the first time Mitchie's been plastered with colors too dark to be natural and it doesn't comfort her that someone would have to grow used to becoming a rag doll.

She's hesitant to lift Mitchie's shirt because she doesn't know what boundaries she has or even if she's already crossed them. Her eyes plead for a reaction as she reaches for the hem, and Mitchie concludes her admiration of Alex's eyes.

Mitchie douses the awkward agony by lifting her shirt herself, slowly, dragging, almost dropping the material fully back down over her waist a few times. With a deep breath, she pulls it up over her stomach and halfway up her ribcage, holding the oxygen in her chest because she's bearing herself to a complete stranger. It's not as discomforting to her as she would have thought, but trust is still a word she has yet to fully understand.

Alex makes no sound at the newly uncovered ground of Mitchie's abdomen and she wants herself to be surprised by the web of bruises there, but she isn't. She was expecting it, but as she follows the trickle of blood up to Mitchie's gash that looks like veins pulsing above her skin rather than below it, she pauses and her breathing grows shallow. It's not a clean cut.

Alex ignores the way her muscles have locked from the tension of her rage induced contractions as she visually outlines the wound. The skin is bashed in rather than sliced open and it's rigid, discolored with bruises. Whatever was used to hit her, it was blunt and it struck her _hard_.

Alex grits her teeth.

Wrapping the material of her shirt around the abrasion, she applies an uncomfortable but necessary amount of pressure to it. She has a thousand questions.

'_Who did this to you?'_

'_Why?'_

'_How long?'_

'_Why aren't they in _prison_?'_

'_Am I hurting you?'_

'_What else have they done to you?'_

But she says nothing. She only locks her jaw to keep the questions from flowing through the floodgates of her lips and her eyes hold a hard, concentrated stare on Mitchie's wound. She thinks, as her dark brows furrow together due to her focus, that this is the first meaningful Friday night she's had in months and it makes her stomach contract and twist because there's a certain passion burning beneath her skin that hasn't been ignited in far too long. She can feel her artist's fingertips itch, the primal need for a pencil or a paintbrush, anything to move the absolute scrambled and stirring thoughts from her mind to paper. The appetite is spinning her head in shapes that aren't circles, shapes with hard edges and sharp corners.

She almost can't concentrate because she's so angry and so inspired. With a calming breath, she looks away from the red of Mitchie's blood that's begun to overtake the white of her own shirt and the crimson has left a picture on it. It's not distinct, more like finding illustrations in the clouds. Something you need to squint your eyes and maybe tilt your head a little to the left, after you spin around once or twice, in order to really see it. But she sees it, and she's only squinted her eyes out of doubt.

The blood has stained through pure white, leaving a magnolia smeared onto Alex's shirt.

It's now that she takes the time to appreciate the soft glow of Mitchie's skin under the moon and orange flame of color from streetlights that dances along her exposed stomach and her tattered arms. There's nothing to hide the upraised scars and Alex feels like she's intruding, but her eyes tread along a particular scar that begins just above Mitchie's left hip bone and disappears beneath the waistline of her pants. She wonders how far down it travels and she wonders how deep it once was. She wonders if Mitchie cried.

The silence is suddenly deafening and she realizes she hasn't uttered a word since she spoke Mitchie's name, which sparks a blaze upon her cheeks and she's never one to be embarrassed but the circumstances almost call for it. She's used to having the upper hand and she doesn't warm up to the feeling of sitting on thorns, with the way Mitchie still looks ready to pass out, yet still expectant. Her deep mahogany eyes seem so innocent and Alex shakes her head with a sigh because tainting someone like this is reserved for words that make her feel sick.

"You're so banged up," she says with a wavering frown, teeth scratching over her bottom lip. It's not a conversational topic and it's nothing more than an observation, but she feels like she owes this girl a few words. "Why…" she drifts, the slight wind carrying off the rest of what she wants to say. She doesn't want to be considered nosy and she notices that Mitchie immediately reacts dismissively, looking away. "I'm sorry, it's not my business, I don't even know you and we've said about three words to each other and here I am _barging_ -"

A gentle hand on her about-to-be-flailing arm drapes a blanket over the rest of what she was going to say without thinking and she smiles apologetically.

"It's okay," Mitchie offers, her voice so, so worn. "You … you're, um …" she struggles inwardly, eyes downcast for a moment as she fiddles with her own hands. "Thank you," she murmurs, lifting her eyes.

"It's nothing. I don't understand how people have been walking by without stopping, I mean _what _the -" this time she stops herself, noticing that Mitchie has averted her gaze again and she wonders if she's sounding too aggressive. She tones herself down and sighs, feeling defeated by her lack of knowledge. "But hey, it's going to be fine now," _and you're going to smile and mean it_.

Mitchie quirks her lips briefly, looking lost in thought. "…Who is Harper?"

"Oh, Harper's my best friend," Alex answers easily, shrugging. She picks up on the hesitancy that Mitchie has, getting into the car of a stranger's best friend, who is even more unfamiliar to her. "She's nothing to worry about, I promise. Her sense of fashion may be off and yeah, maybe she shouldn't owe a sewing machine, but that makes her Harper, I guess." Alex shifts her hips a bit, letting up on the pressure over Mitchie's wound to check if the bleeding has stalled.

"Oh," Mitchie breathes, a little surprised. "A girl?"

"As far as I know," she laughs. "You thought Harper was a boy?"

Mitchie scratches at her cheek timidly. "I, well, yeah," she stammers. "I've never heard of a girl with that name."

"Believe me, boys will never wear dresses made of the things Harper uses," Alex adds with a shudder, then quickly recovers with a certain air about her words. "But, y'know, I wouldn't love her if she was any different."

--x--

Alex really has no idea what she's doing as she peels her shirt from Mitchie's side, thankful that the bleeding has virtually stopped. Harper will be there any minute and that's where her plan collides with a solid wall, entirely unsure of what to do next. The hospital is her first instinct, but she's not keen on the idea of 'say goodbye and go.' She's not even sure of Mitchie's range of motion at the moment, let alone if she'll see her again after tonight, and the fact that she's bothered by the thought of never seeing her again causes a certain unpleasant swirl at the very pit of her stomach.

"Alex? Are you okay? You're, um, you're staring," it comes out nervously and a little quieter than anything else she's said so far, accompanied with a hesitant smile that Alex finds generously more than adorable.

"Sorry," she says with a shake of her head and Mitchie pulls her shirt down over her stomach.

"You don't have to keep apologizing. I mean, you're the one who's doing this," Mitchie pauses, suddenly not so sure what _this _is, but she doesn't really want to care, either. "for me." She finishes, quizzically bringing her eyebrows together in a thoughtful frown.

Alex waves her off in that 'pft-are-you-kidding' kind of way that lifts some of the compressed weight from Mitchie's chest as she wonders when she became so acquainted with apologizing at all. She was never the first one to drop the bell when it came to saying sorry, yet here she was, spilling it out between every statement. She wants to tell Mitchie that she's apologizing because she's only ever had bruises from falling out of that tree climbing after Max when he stole her first training bra and wore it as a hat and then as exceedingly ineffective sunglasses. She's only ever had bruises from little things; no one has ever hit her the way Mitchie's been hit and for that she's sorry. She wants to say she's sorry that Mitchie has to flinch every time Alex shifts against the uncomfortable pavement.

"Like I said, I'm gonna get you out of here."

It's such a simple sentence and maybe it's the way she says it so nonchalantly, like it's second nature, that makes Mitchie smile with her tongue between her teeth as headlights come into view and momentarily blind the two of them.

And then the driver's door is slamming shut as Harper, still disoriented from the haze of sleep, comes running to the stoop where Alex and Mitchie are sitting, knees touching. Her face is indifferent as she raises her eyebrows at Alex with a look that's all _who-is-she-and-why-is-she-bleeding-on-your-shirt_.

"Alex, I know you like to spice up your Friday nights but, oh my God!"

"Harper, this is Mitchie," Alex motions, a little confused by the way her voice softens on her name. She leans down, grasping Mitchie's hand firmly to help her to her feet before turning back to Harper. "I need to you to take us to the hospital -" the hand in hers squeezes, frantically, and she flickers her eyes down to Mitchie's. They're wide and alive with a terror that revives the anger beneath Alex's skin and she can feel her own breathing pick up, as well as the girl beside her.

She doesn't know what happened, but the hammer and nail to her chest will be relieved once she finds out.

"Er - um, just," she snaps her head to Harper, then back to Mitchie again. "Just take us to my place."

Harper gives a small wave, most likely directed toward Mitchie, and presses a button on her car keys that brings life to the headlights again with a click and Alex smiles at her appreciatively.

"No hospital? But this poor girl looks like a box of crayons," Harper frowns, concerned.

Mitchie shies away from conversation, tightening her grip a bit on Alex's hand because she knows she's being unintentionally analyzed and she's aware that isn't on purpose, but she's never been fond of the way eyes look down on her.

"She'll be okay," Alex answers for Mitchie, trying to convince herself more than anyone else and she notes mentally that they're talking about her in third person, as if she isn't there. "I made a promise," she adds optimistically, but she's still against the idea, even as she hears Mitchie's erratic breathing.

For her to be so scared, Alex can't bring herself to imagine who the monster is that built up a playground of bruises on Mitchie.

"Alex, I'm just saying, but you're a little irrational sometimes and it would just be safer…"

"I'm fine," Mitchie barely manages the two words, but they're soft spoken and not at all irritated. Simply making a statement. "Really."

Her chest is still twisting as she imagines Alex's house and she wonders if Alex has siblings or what her parents are like and suddenly she wants to back away into the dented metal trashcan a few feet away, chained down to the sidewalk. She doesn't know this girl, doesn't even know her last name and since when has she been the type to get into the car of one stranger and go home with another? Her eyelids feel heavy and it's just beginning to catch up with her that she was abandoned on a New York city sidewalk to bleed out and then some random, nameless girl found her and told her it was going to be okay. It's a little overwhelming, the way she feels so very alone between two people that know nothing about her. The heel of her palm is pressing against her forehead as the streets spin around her and the lights blend into a technicolor show that only makes her more nauseas.

Her hand slips from Alex's and she stumbles backward a step or two before Alex has her hands on her shoulders, holding her upright.

"Mitchie?"

She shakes her head, pushing away and her back collides stiffly with the building behind her, but her legs want to keep walking, further, further. Alex is speaking, her lips are moving but Mitchie only hears the horrendous ringing in her ears as her lungs choke on the deprivation of air and her muscles scream in the face of her bones. She can't stay still because running and dodging are the only ways the fists don't get to her and she wants to smash through the bricks pressed against her back that trap her between air and the girl with Mitchie's blood on her shirt.

She can faintly see Harper take the shirt from Alex before her tunnel vision gains the advantage and she doesn't register the feel of someone catching her from under her arms just as she collapses to the ground.

--x--

"I feel like a kidnapper…" Alex mumbles, leaning against the frame of her bedroom door with her eyes trained on Mitchie, who's sleeping and dead to the world in the confinements of Alex's bed and Alex's pajamas.

"We did the right thing…I think," Harper answers with a shrug and her nose a little scrunched up. "It's not like we could just leave her there."

"Yeah, I know. But the way she just freaked out like I was going to hurt her or something, I don't know," Alex runs a hand up her opposite arm as her head leans against the frame along with the rest of her body.

"She's probably just scared. What reason does she have to trust us, you know?"

"Yeah."

"So…what are you going to tell the 'rents?"

Alex groans.

"I have _no idea."_


	3. Chapter 3

Hey guys, here's your next chapter. I cried a little, I'm such a softy. Hope you enjoy (:

Oh, and also, fanfiction is being odd and not letting me change the alignment of things...so it's all left aligned. Frustrating. Rah.  
I'll try and fix it later.

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing.

--x--

_Colorblind_

_Chapter Three;_

The room is dark and quiet and the sheets are warm, incubating her rattling bones that have forgotten this kind of heat. She can almost enjoy it, but the way her heart is thrashing about in her chest is a metronome to the incomplete, fleeting thoughts that have her head snapping left and right and a quickening pulse in her veins. Her body is sore and the rush of frantic blood magnifies the throbbing in her head as she sits up and tries to focus on her hand held in front of her face. Her fingers flex and her frustrated eyebrows draw together as her breath shakes in her chest. This isn't her bed and her skin feels too tight, pricked by a cold bite of fear as she picks up on the distinct sound of someone else breathing.

Nostalgia is a sick thing and she wants to scream with the way her memories are expelling _his _breath down her neck and she freezes, neck stiff and fists curled, until the phantom passes.

It's hard to remind herself that he isn't there when she's unsure of where she is. She can't convince herself when she can feel his hands on her skin, like hot iron, _branding_, blistering to the touch. The hate that she grasps with fingertips that have seen too much is the only thing she clings to so she won't fall into the darkness. She can only get up if the hate is strong enough to pull her. Without it, she's aimless.

She _hates _hating him.

Because even if she's never given in, even if she's fought and never truly surrendered, he's still the lifeline and he always wins. The very man that pushes her to the ground is the only thing that also lifts her back up. Without the fight, she won't get up.

She's alone now and she can't decide if that means she's won. She doesn't know if the game is over, if he's handed her a loaded gun to do with as she wishes.

Victory shouldn't feel so painful and it's when she swallows a single sob, hiccupping as the back of her hand brushes away the hot tears, that Mitchie knows she hasn't won a thing. It's on pause and she'll never have the satisfaction of winning even if he never touches her again because the last push he gave her runs deep enough to scar her bones.

She wants to run, with her bare feet and purple bruises, she just wants to run. Destinations are second priority, all she wants is green grass and _no more red_. The thoughts are turning the gears in her body and she's frail, so as she whips the blankets away, goosebumps rise like an epidemic on her arms and the heat escapes her within moments. She's become more than acquainted with the cold and it's easy to ignore, almost just as easy to embrace as she steps out of bed, not at all gracefully. Pain rips from her ribs and pulsates throughout her limbs, hot and white, delaying her few footsteps before she crumples to the carpeted floor.

She's become friends with the cold because heat has scorched her too many times to count the scars it's left behind. She's never had the choice, but being numb hurts less.

Hand gripping her side, cheek pressed to the floor, she cries because she won't ever understand why everyone else can touch the sun without getting burned.

Her eyes have adjusted to the darkness and the moon glows through a window she's never seen before, but no amount of light is helpful as she tries to ignore the way the entire room wavers around her from the blurry kaleidoscope her tears make, pooling. She listens to the way oxygen is repeatedly interrupted as she breathes in, cut off each time she shakes a little too violently and her throat closes too tightly. Mitchie doesn't cry often, not like this, but the weight on her back as she sobs into the floor could nearly flatten her to dust. She's never felt this hopeless and lost and she doesn't care where she is or who sees her; she's beyond keeping her cover glossy and her binding strong.

She's frustrated and between desperate moans, she's asking aloud, again and again.

"_Why?"  
_

The last time she asks it, her cry prolongs the single syllable into sounding like several and she doesn't hear the breathing from earlier suddenly stop.

--x--

Dreams are far away. Alex slept in darkness, void of anything at all. It's neither pleasant or repulsive, until the silence is ripped straight down the middle by a sound that contorts her insides and shocks her eyes open, fast and borderline hysterical. She's almost rolling off of the two-seater couch diagonal from her bed as the noise grows louder and easier to distinguish, the cotton of sleep slipping from her ears. Thoughts are still a little bit lost on her and she's just beginning to process the pictures and film that her eyes are sending to her brain for development, but the flash goes off the second she sees empty sheets on her bed.

Mitchie's name is on repeat inside of her mind, followed by all sorts of exclamation points and questions marks that she doesn't yet have the capability of saying aloud. The cogs are still turning, but she's been woken with cold water by the lack of Mitchie.

And then she's awake enough to understand the _noise _and her feet are connecting with the floor, followed by her knees as she finds Mitchie, crumpled and heaving on the floor.

"Mitchie, oh my God," her gentle hands lift Mitchie's quaking and slack body into her lap, subconsciously feeling for blood as a precaution. Alex grips Mitchie's ankles and brings them behind her back, encircling Mitchie's legs around her waist to hold her more securely and she feels a fraction more relaxed that there isn't resistance. "Shh, you're safe, it's just us. No one else, no one will ever hurt you. Never, never, never…" she whispers, lips almost grazing Mitchie's ear as she absorbs the aftershock of Mitchie's every tremor.

Mitchie's face is pressed into the curve of Alex's neck and she compares the smell of the other's girl skin to the faded pillows that were the previous home of her tears, and she immediately realizes there is no comparison. She's flooded with memories of mere hours ago, when Alex found her, saved her.

Alex almost feels like she's having an out of body experience, watching this happen rather than making this happen, because she doesn't hold anyone like this. She doesn't hold strangers in her lap, rubbing soothing circles into their backs like she's doing with Mitchie. She feels very _in place _and she's never enjoyed helping people, but this is more of a necessity than an obligation and she won't even let herself think it's a burden. Because it's not.

She sighs, holding Mitchie a little closer, maybe because of her own insecurities and confusion, maybe because they're so close that Alex can feel her chest weighed down with pain that isn't hers. She's not even all that startled by the way it feels like there's been an empty space reserved for this all along. It's not extra, more along the lines of a necessary piece of the puzzle that got lost before it was even sealed inside of the box.

"I know I totally just kidnapped you and stuff, and we don't know a thing about each other, but you can trust me. Trust me, okay? Because for some reason I can trust you."

Mitchie breathes in deeply from her mouth. A long moment passes.

"I don't know how."

Alex can hardly differentiate the pity from the anger as she closes her eyes in an attempt to calm herself. She nods.

"Okay," she says, breathing through her nose. Trying to control herself because this girl is so broken that she doesn't understand _trust_. "My favourite color is green and I hate bananas. I really hate green bananas. I like puppies, but dogs aren't really my thing. Sleep is my favourite pastime, but I can't _stand _it when my pajamas get all twisty in my sleep. I like eating white chocolate colored pretzels when I watch movies. Comedic relief is my specialty and I don't really like people, but there are a few who manage to get under my skin," she pauses as Mitchie leans back in her lap, searching Alex's face. So honest.

Alex keeps going, ticking off her hobbies. "Week days only exist so you can plan for the weekend and just so you know, boys suck. Art is my favourite subject in school and it's one of the few reasons I even bother going. I've never picked up a stranger and taken her home with me before. And _yes_, that's the first time I've used that line," Mitchie hints at a smile and it makes Alex's chest hurt a little less. "My name is Alex Russo and I have no idea what I'm doing, but I swear to God, I might lose it if someone ever hurts you again."

Mitchie's heartbeat falters for a moment.

She's overwhelmed and confused. People don't offer her introductions like this, people brush her off like the dirt on their shoes, but Alex is giving her this _look_ that's so genuine she feels more like glitter on heels.

"Teach me," she whispers and Alex reads her lips more than hearing her.

She doesn't respond, but she doesn't need to because Mitchie finds she can read Alex's eyes like a book; a new page is turned with every blink and she's considerably fluent in this _language_.

"Teach me trust," Mitchie repeats and the intense, determined eyes staring back at her cause her random burst of confidence to slink away. She wants to understand the world of allowing another person into her door, she's eager and scared.

Alex knows this is more important than the time she taught Max the precise mechanics on how to lie to Justin because this isn't about posture and making sure not to stutter. This is about changing someone and being there for someone, and she has yet to commit to much of anything, but she barely allows Mitchie's request to roll around her mind before she's already decided.

"Do you trust me to teach you?"

"Yes."

Alex smiles, brushing away Mitchie's fringe.

"Then we're already halfway there."

Mitchie's skin is moon-kissed and her hair is spilling over her shoulders in chestnut waves, messy and beautiful. The shirt she wears, one of Alex's old plain CK t-shirts, is slipping down her shoulder, the fabric just barely clinging to Mitchie's skinny bicep.

Alex looks at her, really _looks _at her, and under different circumstances she would berate herself for checking this girl out. It's a little more than that, so she doesn't stop herself from taking in Mitchie's deep eyes, her defined chiseled jaw, the gentle slope of her neck.

She's _beautiful _and Alex thinks the rest of the world must be colorblind not to see it.

"You should get to sleep," Alex murmurs as she glances at the clock, away from Mitchie for more reasons than one.

"Is this your room?" Mitchie asks distractedly, like she didn't hear Alex at all, as she gazes around.

"Uh-huh, and that's my shirt," she playfully plucks the collar of the shirt Mitchie's wearing.

Mitchie's blush is disguised by the hazy blue glow of the moon.

Suddenly, Alex's face falls.

"I, uh, I couldn't let you sleep in what you were wearing. It was all covered in blood and stuff and – and I know sleeping in jeans is uncomfortable, so I changed you into some of my clothes. I didn't like, _look _or anything, I swear. Just patched you up with some band-aids and pj's -"

"You did that for me?" Mitchie breathes.

Alex stops her rambling and she expected 'you did that _to_ me?' rather than what Mitchie just whispered.

"Is that okay?"

Mitchie doesn't know why, but it is.

"It's okay."

Alex smiles with more than just her mouth as she stands, pulling Mitchie with her and leaning most of the other girl's paper weight against her body. She walks her wordlessly to the bed and sits her on the edge, allowing her hand to linger on Mitchie's knee, scratching her nails lightly along the flannel pajamas before she steps back, watching Mitchie watch her.

"Go to sleep, Mitchie. I'll be here when you wake up."

It's like she knows that Mitchie needed that extra bit of reassurance to sleep, otherwise the words are unnecessary.

Mitchie's lips turn up into a crooked smile as she lays back in Alex's bed, burrowing beneath the blankets that smell like the shirt she's wearing. As Alex crosses the room back to the small couch, Mitchie feels a little colder where Alex's hands aren't touching her anymore, but she'll dream tonight.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** I don't own WOWP or CR, just having fun turning both main characters into flaming gheys (:  
P.s. I apologize for any typos, I was having some srs problems attempting to get this on here with formatting and all that shizz.

__

Colorblind

Chapter Four;

Alex doesn't sleep, not the way she usually does on Saturdays.

She plays out several lies in her head to explain Mitchie to her parents, but none of them seem legitimate or even believable and she can't focus as her mind has seemed to snap a picture of every moment that has happened in the last seven hours and then proceeded to frame them. Questions tumble around within her like dirty laundry and she continuously shifts, lying on her left shoulder then her right, her stomach, before turning onto her back again with a defeated sigh that makes her feel like she's just expelled a part of her soul even though her hand is heavy as she runs it through her tired hair.

Her eyes wander to the outline of her bed where Mitchie is lying on her stomach, her face angled toward Alex and her lips parted. Mitchie's body is rising and falling with every soft breath she takes and the hem of her shirt has ridden up, exposing the gentle slope of her lower back.

There are no bruises there, it's like a pure, blank sheet of paper that has yet to be tainted and Alex is oddly relieved to know there are at least some pieces of Mitchie that don't need to heal.

Bringing her gaze back to the ceiling, Alex hopes Mitchie is dreaming.

The weekend is supposed to be more carefree than the rest of the week and it's a shock to her system to have so much anxiety constricting her. She wonders if this is what a withdrawal feels like and even though she's never given a thought to trying drugs, she thinks the rattling beat of her heart and the goosebumps on her skin are similar enough symptoms. It's literally painful and she doesn't understand at all why she wants to cry.

Mitchie is the one with bruises. Mitchie is the one who's bleeding. But Alex _feels _it.

Her imagination proves to be far too overactive throughout the night and she can't close her eyes long enough to fall asleep. They're caught in a constant cycle of flickering from Mitchie to the door.

Alex Russo does not _worry, _but there's a possibility that she's anxious. Anxious enough to slip out of the cocoon of blankets she's built around herself - even though watching Mitchie throughout the night kept her cold - and she pads silently to the door, hand grasping her doorknob as she casts a last lingering gaze to Mitchie. She's hesitant to leave her, if only for a few minutes, on the off chance that Mitchie will wake up and Alex won't be there like she said she would be.

She decides it won't hurt if she's quick and no one should be up considering the ungodly time of 7:45, and the house is as silent as a hollow head. Her bare footsteps are the only testament that she's out of bed, her breathing is quiet even though the noise in her head is louder than static. The trip downstairs is fast and uninterrupted as she pours herself a glass of water and takes it back to her room.

She's not thirsty anymore and she's ten times more restless as she sees her bedroom door open and her knuckles paint white from the tightening grip on her glass. Her heart has dropped to her stomach and then leapt into her throat in one swift motion that burns the back of her mouth. Head spinning, she rushes down the rest of the hallway, footsteps echoing, hollow and angry, and stops in her doorway to find Justin staring at a _very awake _Mitchie and she's starting to shake like she was last night.

"Justin! What are you doing!? Don't you knock!?"

Her brother turns around in an almost zombie-like state that matches the expression on his face perfectly.

Alex looks to Mitchie and the color has drained from her face, making the violet moon beneath her left eye appear that much darker as she grips hard onto Alex's sheets.

"Alex, _what _is _that_?"

The way Justin spits out his words and refers to Mitchie as _'that'_, as though she's some inanimate object that doesn't feel how much violet skin hurts, makes Alex slam her glass down on her dresser. Justin was always the one with manners, which only makes her angrier. Is Mitchie not good enough for manners?

"Watch it," Alex's tongue feels like a flame in her mouth and she wants to burn him. "She doesn't concern you, Justin. Why are you in my room?"

"I can't find my tie, the one with the piano keys on it."

"Why would I have your tie? If you haven't noticed, boys wear ties. Which leads me to ask, why would you need one?"

"Funny," he scoffs. "It's not like it's beyond you to steal my stuff."

"Whatever. I don't have it, go ask Max."

Justin steals another glance at Mitchie.

"Seriously, who is that?"

"She's my friend and you're probably freaking her out, so leave," Alex pushes against his back, peddling him toward the door and her stomach is sinking because she can see Mitchie staring from the corner of her eye, terrified.

"Why's she all -" Alex's hand clamps over his mouth, muffling the rest of his sentence against her palm as she pushes him out into the hallway and closes the door behind her.

She wrenches her hand away, only to throw both of them into the air.

"Ugh! Can you not be stupid for two seconds!?" whisper-yelling has never been so difficult before because Alex is nothing if not _stealthy_, but she's never wanted to hit Justin so much that her fist is aching to swing until it connects with something breakable.

"Well, _sorr-y _if I'm a little concerned that there's a beat up stranger in your bed!" he replies, his whispering less cautious than Alex's. It only makes her more aggravated that

he isn't so much as trying to hush his lethal words about such a fragile girl.

"She's not a stranger, her name is Mitchie."

"How old is she? What's her last name?"

"…"

"Of course you don't know. Because she's a stranger!"

"No, you don't get it -"

"How long have you known this girl?"

"Forlikesevenhours, but -"

"_Alex_!"

"Justin, just shut up for a second! Somebody hurt her, _really _hurt her and they just left her out in the street, alone. And she's scared and I don't know who did it, but I promised she'd be safe. Thank you for scaring her even more, by the way. If you made her cry, I'm going to kill you."

"She could be some psycho serial killer, or a thief -"

"She's not."

"How do you know?"

"I just do. I trust her and that means you need to respect her, okay?"

Justin opens his mouth to reply, but he's stopped by Alex's index finger held inches from his face.

"And not a word to Mom and Dad."

His shoulders heave, as if this conversation has been to strenuous for him, and he rolls his head around in a circle.

He sighs.

"You owe me."

--x--

The door closes with a _'click' _and Alex locks it with a quick flick of her wrist to prevent Mitchie from any further Russo trauma as she leans back against it, her hands crossed behind her back.

"You okay?" she asks apprehensively and Mitchie locks eyes with her from across the room. She doesn't answer and Alex pushes gently from the door, walking over to her bed and kneeling beside it. "I'm sorry. That was my idiot brother. He wasn't the first thing I wanted you to see when you woke up."

"It's okay, I'm okay," Mitchie notices the slight half-circles beneath Alex's eyes and guilt makes her speak a little quieter. "He just…startled me."

"You don't have to be scared of Justin," Alex answers with a smile and she knows that if she were talking to anyone else, she would have laughed to tears. "He's just a dweeb."

"You're not very nice to him," Mitchie remarks, amused.

"He's not allowed in my room. I hate when he's all up in my business," her face contorts into a weird blend of a glower and a pout. "And I didn't want him to wake you up. I didn't want him to scare you."

There's a beat of silence and suddenly Alex feels too raw, like she was far too blunt with that statement and Mitchie doesn't say anything, she only timidly scans Alex's face.

"But anyway," Alex stands to her feet, running a hand along her own arm, then dropping both arms uselessly at her sides. "It's still early, go back to sleep," she says softly and her fingers twitch at her sides. She wants to touch Mitchie's face.

When Alex makes a move to walk away, Mitchie momentarily panics and her frail hand gently arrests Alex's wrist before she can think against it. The slow seconds as Alex turns around tick like gunshots and Mitchie is completely too aware that she has nothing to say, but Alex stares back at her with those eyes that tell her it's okay. They look a little confused, but they're warm.

"I…will you stay?"

The confusion melts from Alex's eyes and they smile instead.

"I'm not going anywhere, I'll just be over there," Alex nods her head toward the small couch.

Mitchie shakes her head in the negative.

"No, I mean, will you," she glances nervously at the empty side of the bed, loosing her light grip on Alex's wrist and her arm swings back to rest beside her hip.

Alex subconsciously licks at her dry lips and her mouth opens just barely, like _'oh' _and Mitchie looks away as if she's just sinned. The taller girl immediately detects her own mistake and wills her vocal chords to function beyond acting like strands of withering rope.

Her voice is hoarse as she answers.

"You want me to sleep with you?" she croaks and regrets halfway through saying it because it's not like she meant _sleep with you, _but she has no idea what Mitchie's assumption habits are.

"I'm sorry," she rushes out and Alex blinks with surprise. She looks frightened and she's fidgeting, burdened with nerves.

"Sorry? What are you talking about?" she takes careful notice that Mitchie is beginning to quiver.

Mitchie glances around the room, her breathing unsteady and she won't look at Alex. The air is uneasy and Alex can almost feel it; the way the atmosphere is becoming solid, glass about to shatter.

"I shouldn't - I didn't mean to - I'm just really," her words waver and they continue to spill mindlessly from her lips, like a shaken bottle of something carbonated. It almost gets to the point where she's begging and Alex stares incredulously as the moon beneath Mitchie's eye begins to glisten with shed tears that she looks completely incapable of controlling. Her shoulders are starting to sporadically rise then sharply fall.

She thinks she's upset Alex, that she's done something wrong and Alex can tell that this method of recoiling is her way of preparing for punishment. She frowns with gentle eyes as she inwardly suffers a storm cloud of conflicting emotions, swirling within her like a counterclockwise hurricane and she _hates _watching Mitchie cry. It's so incredibly wrong.

She's silent as she crawls in between the sea of soft sheets, her chest aching and her skin hot. Pressing her body flush against Mitchie's, she pulls her into her arms, resting Mitchie's head in the crook of her neck that provides a basin for her tears. Alex simply breathes, absorbing the tremors of Mitchie's quaking body and she says nothing as her hand soothes Mitchie's back. She holds her with steady arms, a blank, dead expressionless look on her face as the veins surrounding her heart constrict like tightening vines, pulling and adding pressure.

Mitchie can feel the muscles of Alex's arms twitching beneath her skin, can feel that she's much stronger than she looks and it gives her a sense of structure. It makes her feel safe.

The pressure becomes too much and Alex can't sit still and be strong anymore, her bones feel like beaten soggy wood, but she holds Mitchie tight as she cries with her. She will not let go and she won't let Mitchie feel like something that's been recycled anymore.

--x--

Alex wakes, still sleep deprived, but considerably more rejuvenated than she'd felt mere hours ago. Somehow, in the midst of sleep, she'd ended up on her back and Mitchie had moved right along with her, her head resting on Alex's chest and her arms gingerly wrapped around her waist. Their legs are slightly tangled and Alex is grateful for her locked door, lest the family finds her in this compromising position.

The sun is leaking through her window and light draws to Mitchie's hair like it hasn't seen her in awhile.

Alex runs her fingers through it, her nails lightly skating along Mitchie's scalp with the beginning of each stroke and Alex shakes her head, talking quietly to herself, more than satisfied with Mitchie's even breathing as her only response.

"Oh, Mitchie," she mumbles softly, tasting the question on her tongue but the answer is lost. "How could anyone hurt you?"

She closes her eyes for a moment, trying to answer that question for herself. There are some things she just won't ever understand, like why anyone would want to snap a new pencil or tear an unused sheet of paper. Why anyone would want to break something so breakable when the only thing she could think to do was protect it from getting broken.

Mitchie's breathing picks up for a moment and Alex can feel the body on top of her own begin to tense, so her hand goes back to it's previous trek along Mitchie's back while her free arm holds her securely.

It's all she can think to do, to protect her, and it works for awhile until her eyes are blinking and assaulted by the sunlight. She tilts her head to look at Alex and she's startled if the widening of her eyes and soft gasp are anything to go by.

"Do not," Alex presses a finger to Mitchie's lips as she opens her mouth to speak. "-even _think _about saying you're sorry."


	5. Chapter 5

Thank you all for continuing to review. Or even just read it. You have no idea what it means to me. :)  
**Yourpersonalsunshine;** Your review made me smile, you never closed it once!?

I've been really lame with replying, I'm sorry! My exams kicked me right in the bum, but those are over now, so I'm back to not being busy.

**Disclaimer: **I own aaabsolutely nothing.

--x--

_Colorblind_

_Chapter Five;_

Alex lowers her finger from Mitchie's pink pastel colored lips and the wind that passes between them warms Alex's neck as she breathes out slowly, her body deflating against the chest beneath her. It's a slow surrender, not that Alex was ever the enemy, but there _was_ a war, one that the rest of the world heard only as loud as a clap of thunder can be heard on the moon. To Mitchie, it was like being born into a minefield and taking too many wrong steps; she hears the sweep of thunder and feels the hot, hot burn of lightening. The stars watched and didn't care, and the rising sun only meant she had to wake to being ignored by the light of day, anyway.

She doesn't know if the storm has passed, if the war is over, but she surrenders because it feels a little like Alex has swept her in from the rain.

The fear isn't gone, her innocence and youth have still been murdered, parts of her have still suffered irreplaceable casualties, but the white flag she's waving in Alex's face could be the rescue she's needed all along.

Alex sees it as plainly as she would see and hear fireworks set off in a pattern of SOS, as if the bruises on Mitchie's face spell out "H-E-L-P." How could someone be oblivious to that? Or if they weren't blind to it, how could they carry on ignoring it? This is always why Alex has viewed people as a disease, scarring and draining the earth until they infect one another enough to kill.

She thinks about last night, imagines the headlines if she hadn't stopped to get a better glimpse of the mangled beauty upon New York pavement.

Mitchie's body is stiff and pained as her heart pumps iron, her vision is blurry and smudged at the edges. Alex colors in the lines for her with a gentle 'good morning' that has Mitchie watching her slack mouth, unmarked and lacking a smile. That would just be too picture perfect and Alex doesn't have it in her to erase the flaws of much of anything.

She finds it easy to stare at Mitchie because she is flawless.

Alex skims her thumb over the ashy bruise beneath Mitchie's eye, thinking that maybe if she touches it, then it will tell her how it was born as Mitchie wonders what it's like to be wanted.

She doesn't care that she's lying in her own bed with a girl she doesn't know because the blood and the bruises speak louder than the echo of Mitchie's sobs from last night, even though the haunting sounds left ripples in their wake that make Alex blink quickly for a few seconds to repress the heavy urge to cry. They tell the story almost as well as Mitchie's soft, lilting voice could and they scream for help. Alex isn't God, but an angel's wings have been ripped from her and she won't simply watch her wither with open eyes. If God won't hold her, then Alex will.

Mitchie has skin that begs to be loved, delicate and worn years beyond her age. Alex thinks she shouldn't have to ask.

"I was going to say thank you," Mitchie murmurs lowly, eyebrows elevated and a small smirk cricks the left side of her mouth upwards. "And good morning to you, too."

Alex allows relief to drown her, seeing Mitchie smile like that. Like a girl who has to worry about something trivial such as doing the dishes, not fists swinging with the momentum of heavy pendulums. She wants to tell Mitchie that smiles look so much better on her than tears, but she knows that'd be weird.

"'Thank you' is just as unnecessary as 'I'm sorry,'" she clarifies while Mitchie watches her with this expression, deep and searching, that causes Alex's right hand to curl into the sheets, gripping for an imaginary pencil because she needs to transfer this to paper. Something this beautiful needs to be recorded even if it is unforgettable. Her blood is coursing in more colors than red as she remembers to breathe.

Mitchie's eyes are a liquefied pair of mahogany tornadoes, treading under Alex's skin and stirring up her heartbeat. She's the most perfect muse Alex has yet to be inspired by and she's only more beautiful when her lips curl back into a shy smile as she notices she's being ogled.

Her nails scratch into her sheets, craving to draw her even more when Mitchie's tongue catches between her teeth, a replication of the smile she gave her last night but this time the sun is behind her and this time she's in Alex's arms.

"You stayed," she finally says, breathy and quiet, like it's been pressing on her tongue to say it since she woke up.

"You asked me to," Alex reminds her, in a way that says it'd be ridiculous for her to have not fulfilled her request. "Of course I stayed."

Mitchie blinks quizzically, entering the labyrinth of Alex's dark, turbulent pools. Eyes deeper than the ocean that throw wave after wave upon the shore as if churned by a storm. But they have a light about them that tells Mitchie there's a sun blazing beneath rain clouds.

"I'm confused," she struggles, feeling as though she's a burden to Alex's chest, but reluctant to move away from the warmth and safety. "Why are you doing this? No one … no one has stayed before," she fumbles, nervous under the smoldering eyes that care about the words she's saying. She's unused to gentle and undivided attention and she feels the awkward inexperience become apparent in the form of heat on her cheeks.

That makes Alex feel ill. She wonders how long Mitchie has been alone, though she's not sure she could constructively handle knowing how many times Mitchie had reached out for another hand only to pull it back wounded.

"I'm not like them," Alex in no way opposes to being different, but she detests being atypical when it's because she cares and they don't. She knows she's getting angry again. "I'm nothing like them and you asked me to stay with you, so I stayed."

Mitchie grows silent at the simplicity of the statement. It nearly stuns her for a moment.

Alex is not like them.

She presses her abused palms into the mattress, pushing herself upwards with gritted teeth and enough difficulty to make Alex straighten and grip Mitchie's elbows, fingers maneuvering around carelessly crafted bruises. She tugs on Mitchie's arms to pull her up, conscious of the gash on her side as she aids Mitchie in sitting up.

They sit across from one another and Alex leans her elbows on her knees, waiting. She notes the planes of Mitchie's face, feathery eyelashes and carved shadows. Bruises that should be shadows. The imperfections do nothing to mar her gorgeous skin and face, they only leave a firmer print in Alex's mind because she's been betrayed and torn, but she can still smile.

"Like that," Mitchie shakes her head, frustrated with her own confusion. "Why'd you help me?" she asks, a little brokenly, unsure and hesitant. Like she really has no idea. As if it boggles her into a continuous spiral of questions that she'd never so much as thought of asking.

"Well, because you were having trouble sitting up. I wasn't just going to watch and do nothing," Alex is aware that Mitchie's question is deeper than what she's answering to, but her reply fits just as well.

Mitchie bites her bottom lip with a frown.

"But last night, you stopped and held my hand. There's a ton of people that walk around on a Friday night in New York and they didn't stop," she tries to detangle her thoughts into words as Alex starts to scuff her nails over her own thigh.  
_  
And they didn't stop.  
_  
Why?

"I ruined your shirt and you didn't care and you got your friend to come out so late to take me back to your house, in your bed, in your clothes and then I wake up…in your arms - and you don't even care. You're not mad that some stranger -"

"I have no reason to be mad," Alex interrupts, a little confused now as well. Her brows knit. "Did you expect me to be mad?"

Mitchie offers a delayed nod.

"I'm not mad," Alex shakes her head as she speaks.

She observes as Mitchie roots her eyes about the room, wringing her hands in her lap and it occurs to Alex that she doesn't know what to say. She doesn't know how to react.

Alex continues staring as if Mitchie is staring back, unaffected by Mitchie's evasiveness. It's obvious she was brought up that way and Alex doesn't hold her to blame for it.

"I just met you like twelve hours ago, but that doesn't mean that I don't care."

Alex is _not_ like them.

That makes Mitchie's head spin for a moment. It's a possibility that she'd treaded on before, but she'd never been able to grasp it. There'd always been some sort of hazardous barrier that kept her from fully comprehending what it was to be cared for.

She felt more loved with Alex's amateur first aid abilities holding her together than she ever did in her own room.

The air feels touchable, dense, and there's a thudding in Mitchie's ears that she'd only ever associated with fear, but she's not scared. She hadn't focused much on Alex's appearance and until now she hadn't noticed how very _attractive_ she was. She hadn't noticed the subconscious hand Alex had on Mitchie's knee.

She could almost faint again with the way Alex is looking at her. Her breath has been completely stolen.

And then Alex is leaning and Mitchie's heartbeat dies and revives with twice as much speed. She can nearly taste her own pulse.

"Mitchie, you okay?" Alex waves a hand a few inches from Mitchie's nose, effectively snapping her from the trans she'd worked herself into.

She opens her mouth to answer, but the words are jolted from her by a knock at the door and her hand involuntarily scrambles to find Alex's. She doesn't realize her hand is clinging until Alex smoothes a gentle thumb over her knuckles like she understands.

"Alex! Are you awake?"

"…No?" she calls in response, wincing, softening her gaze on Mitchie, like '_it's alright.'_

"Nice try," Theresa's muffled voice vibrates through the wood of her door. "We need you down at the substation for the lunch rush."

"But, _Mom_," Alex's shoulders fall, her hand holding Mitchie's stays firm.

"Five minutes, kiddo!" the click of her heels begin even before she says it, so there's no use in arguing with air.

Mitchie's bones have locked up and the oxygen has frozen in her chest, but it's quick to melt when Alex touches her bottom lip with the pad of her thumb. At first she thinks Alex had taken notice of her displays of panic and this was her strange way of comforting her, but that thought is quick to be cast aside.

"Your lip is bleeding," she says, quiet and frustrated as she frowns; the brief conversation with her mother forgotten and unimportant.

Mitchie reaches for words that aren't there and she's not sure if she's even breathing, let alone capable of speaking. Alex has these soft, flawless hands that could brush off every scar Mitchie has and her bottom lip trembles where Alex touched it.

"I must have been chewing on it or something, it's nothing," Mitchie breathes, tucking her bottom lip in her mouth and she feels detached from her own body as the heat from Alex sparks a slow burn along her skin and the familiar metallic taste of blood greets the tip of her tongue.

"Hm, if you say so," Alex inspects her without being invasive before she stands with a lazy stretch.

Mitchie remains innocently propped up in the middle of her bed, looking small and breakable, a little lost and Alex wishes she could provide her with some sort of comforting familiarity.

"I have to go change, I'll be right back. Don't you dare go trying to escape, 'cause I'll find you, girl," she wags a scolding finger with a mischievous smile that succeeds in warding off the brooding rain cloud above Mitchie's head for a moment because she smiles back.

"That rusty escape ladder is mighty tempting."

"Don't you _dare_."

--x--

When Alex comes back, pajamas bundled in her hands, Mitchie is sitting on the edge of the bed, swallowed in her own observation of Alex's room.

"Alex, is that your brother's tie?" she gestures toward Alex's open closet, the remains of a tie with a distinct pattern of piano keys peaking out from the top shelf.

"No, no, my dear, Mitchie," Alex again waves her pointer finger, pressing her free hand's fingertips to her chest dramatically, as if she's about to inform Mitchie of something of dire importance. "That, right there, is my homemade headband courtesy of Harper's sewing machine."

Mitchie smirks, nodding.

"And Justin's tie."

"It's previous life may have been in the form of a tie, yes."

Mitchie quirks an eyebrow. "You're devious."

"I'd be nothing if not surreptitious," Alex informs her, tossing her pajamas into her hamper.

The response she receives deals a weighted blow to her chest that makes her scratch at her own palms.

"You're lots of other things," Mitchie says, her voice gravelly from how low she'd said it and her lips press into a tight line like she regretted it.

Alex swallows and anything she had to say sinks down her throat as well. Her knees feel less like joints and more like old sponges, so her legs have no support as she leans casually against the wall.

"Yeah?"

"Mhm."

"Care to elaborate?" she pines, her tone far too egotistical to be serious and she knows Mitchie gets it. Mitchie gets her.

"I thought you had to work?" Mitchie averts, driving the conversation down a completely different road, one far less rocky. Smooth pavement.

"Oh, it's a secret, I getcha."

"You have to work for it," she answers and she can hear the smart remark before Alex even says it.

"So, after my terribly difficult hour of slave-driven work down at the substation, you'll tell me?"

Mitchie laughs in place of a legitimate answer, but it lifts the beating muscle beneath Alex's chest a little higher and the cage of bones surrounding it doesn't feel like knives anymore.

When Mitchie stands she wobbles a bit and Alex nearly gapes for a moment, rushing to her side with a "Whoa, what are you doing?" and cautiously angles her arms around Mitchie's waist, not touching, but there as a safeguard if she were to fall.

Mitchie gives her this look, like it's painfully obvious.

"Um, you're going downstairs, so I was going to go with you."

"I'd rather you lie down…" she feels like they're an old married couple, having an argument, even though they aren't necessarily arguing. The similarity lies with the fact that her soul is decades old, as is Mitchie's and they entwine as if they've known one another since the beginning.

It's Alex's own method of shielding Mitchie from the gawking and blatant stares she'll undoubtedly receive down at the restaurant because people have hearts that bleed ink, ebony and thick, like hot tar. She's the only protection Mitchie has and it'd be exposing her to the world. Alex doesn't think the world deserves Mitchie and Mitchie deserves more than that, so much more than the world has offered to her.

They don't deserve something so beautiful because she's already been taken advantage of and there are certain things that don't get second chances.

Mitchie _does_ get a second chance and Alex will show her that every shadow has some color to it. They're both terribly misunderstood and Alex thinks that maybe she'll be more than a stubborn smudge of graphite on otherwise pure paper if they can understand _each other_.

"I'll only be an hour, maybe less," Alex adds and she's never had to try to be persuasive before. It's a natural habit that's slipped through crevices that are only there because Mitchie makes her vulnerable.

Mitchie knows the blood and tears are too fresh for her to be around so many people, but she's drawn to Alex's soft, velvety voice and gentle hands that have already caught her more times than anyone else ever has. Alex is so warm and she's afraid to be away from the first flame that hasn't hurt her.

"We can do anything you want when I'm done," Alex coaxes, a hopeful smile lifting her lips.

Mitchie is absolutely certain of what she wants to do, but pushing the words past her lips is beyond her capability. It's an innocent request, though she's reluctant to ask and Alex is quite close, close enough to make Mitchie's pulse stutter, to make her skin so hot she thinks it could be steaming.

"Okay," is what she manages and Alex seems satisfied with that answer, pressing her open palm into the hollow of Mitchie's back to pull her closer for a hug. Mitchie smiles into Alex's shoulder, gripping the warmer and stronger body, heart soaring. "An hour?" she says into her shirt, fingers bunching into the fabric like her legs would be unable to hold herself up.

"An hour. I don't care who it is that wants a sandwich, I am coming back to you in an hour," Alex reassures her, using the map of her memory to avoid the bruises beneath Mitchie's shirt because her hands are blind to them. She remembers, though and she keeps her embrace from contacting the particularly awful discoloration she knows is on the backside of Mitchie's ribcage.

Mitchie doesn't flinch at all and Alex is so thrilled that she hasn't hurt her that she almost presses an uncharacteristic kiss to the top of Mitchie's head until her mind breaks the surface of water it had been swimming in, drowning in.

They part from one another, limbs lingering, bodies separated but souls so mingled and tangled that Alex wonders how she ever thought she was whole.


	6. Chapter 6

To my anonymous reviewers;  
Since I can't personally reply to you, I'll say thank you here.

**justpassingby; **Thank you so much! Realistic is a big factor to me and I'm trying to keep it that way, so I'm glad it's working.

**brittaney; **You've reviewed every chapter so far and every single one makes me smile like a maniac. Thank you :).

**t; **Thank you, Mitchie brings it out in her. Ahah.

**Yourpersonalsunshine; **Awh! I'm excited that you're excited! I love your reviews, how could I not mention you? Thankyouthankyouthankyou. (:

--x--

_Colorblind _

_Chapter Six;_

She shivers.

The icy bite of cold hands on her waist settles with as much grace as a crumbling glacier. Choppy, broken, plummeting to meet the face of dark water and then proceeding to crack it. The hands pull, digging into her hips and she sucks air in between her clenched teeth because they're pressing hard enough into her flesh to leave identifiable fingerprints. She feels a rough palm drag over the front of her stomach, calloused fingers that scratch like sandpaper over her contrasting soft skin.

Her neck burns where a mouth finds purchase, angry teeth biting whenever she tries to ease her fingers underneath his palms to pry them off and she figures her skin is making the familiar transformation from pale to sickly shades of blue and purple and black, perhaps a watercolor yellow again. It's not the way kissing should feel, it's more like a snakebite, poisonous and vile. He only grips more possessively when she asks him to stop, when she says he's hurting her.

She locks the whimper in her throat and swallows the dense key, not allowing the submissive noise to escape her as her back meets the wall and he greets her hips with his own. Her stomach churns sporadically, muscles contracting and recoiling. She wants to scrub her skin raw where he's touching her and even then she wouldn't really feel clean. Mitchie feels so sick letting this happen, but she's learned well of the consequences when she objects.

She hates it, but if she grants her lungs the scream they wish to rip from the inner chambers of her chest, he'll be angry, rougher. He'll only drain more color from her and replace it with bruises if she rattles her fists against his arms the way she wants to. She knows this.

She knows this and yet she clutches his wrist and wrenches her hand, squeezing with the strength she derives from hope that died a long time ago. It motivates her to picture places away from this room. Her knuckles protest in blotches of white and she pulls, twists, thrashes, anything to thwart his hands from her waist, his mouth from her neck.

He lowers his free hand directly to her hip bone and his fingers constrict around it, the force of his hand compressing with even intervals of increasing force until she releases his wrist and rams the heels of her palms against his chest. She tries her best not to react when he touches her and most often she directs her focus on keeping her eyes screwed shut so tightly not a stray tear could squeeze through. Never does she get violent with him because she knows better, but this time she fights him and the tears are rushing out like gravity just got stronger.

"Do you remember last time?" he grounds out as if his teeth are chewing on gravel and she coughs, winded as he pins her wrists against the wall on either side of her head.

She lost. She just lost and he will make sure she knows he is victorious.

"Let me go," she demands, feeling anything but confident with her damp cheeks and hiccupping sobs.

"That must mean you forgot," he continues, voice deep and low, furious. His thumb plucks the button on her jeans and she squirms, begging as the zipper is tugged down. Hot breath spilling along her neck that leaves a deeper impression than his brutal hands. Bruises, however many, disappear unlike the sickening sensation of his mouth, his breath mingling with the air and making it toxic.

The fear freezes her spine, cold and brittle, but he'd shattered her backbone long ago.

"Please," she pleads, willing herself to sink into the wall and become wallpaper. His hands aren't cold anymore, they char her skin like sapphire flames, the blue fire she was always told not to touch. Her back stiffens as they're rough texture assaults her stomach again, moving higher until she holds her breath, eyes closed, waiting for the torture and she cries, parting her lips only to gasp for air every few seconds.

His hand releases her wrists and travels the path back down to her waist, crystallizing into a frozen statue, gripping her with the ferocity of a hellish monster just as he had minutes before. Her eyes stay closed as her chest heaves, heart thumping, thumping, thumping and the icy grasp he has on her begins to melt away to what she would call an embrace, but nothing he's ever done to her has been placid enough to name it something like that. The callouses disappear and instead soft, silken palms hold her hips gently. She's no longer leaning against the wall; a mattress is beneath her.

A gasp pries her lips apart and her eyes snap open to see Alex laying beside her, slim arms wrapped around Mitchie's waist. She glances down and Alex's hands are exactly where _his_ had been before, but there aren't bruises beneath them and Alex isn't hurting her. Alex is holding her.

Mitchie's skin is coated in a sheet of cold sweat and her breathing drags, hoarse and ragged as she reaches tentatively for one of Alex's hands to feel if it's real, to make sure this isn't a dream to make reality a little easier to survive. She clutches two of Alex's fingers in her whole hand and that's enough.

It's discouraging that he still has a clawed grasp on her that manages to crawl its way into her dreams and haunt her sleep - he is still there, lurking above her, around her, inside of her. She's getting impatient waiting for when she'll break away and finally be free, but her hope is beginning to heal like a jagged wound, she doesn't have stitches and the edges don't quite match up, but the bleeding has slowed. The sun is glowing in fluorescent puddles of golden light along the floor and she wonders when she fell asleep and how long she's been prey to her nightmare.

Her cheeks flush as she realizes Alex must have found her dozing after her shift was over and then joined her in taking a nap. She can't tell if the extra bit of sleep did wonders for her or if her terror spell has startled her system too severely to be tired anymore.

She thinks she may have squeezed the small fingers too hard because a few moments later Alex's eyes are fluttering open as she rubs a fist against them to discard the weight of sleep. Mitchie's skin immediately feels neglected where Alex's hand moved from, but then Alex instinctively rests it back on the curve of Mitchie's waist without a thought.

"Mitchie, what's up?" she asks, husky in a way that loosens Mitchie's hold on her fingers simply because of the sound of her voice. Her eyelids droop.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up," the words barely tumble from Mitchie's lips as she trips over her own tongue like a tangled shoelace from Alex stroking her thumb along the expanse of skin he'd been brutalizing with his unforgiving hands only minutes ago.

"No, I wasn't supposed to fall asleep, you were just- hey, wait. What did I tell you about that word?" Alex yawns, stretching her legs beneath the comforter and her toes curl against Mitchie's calf. "And that doesn't answer my question."

Mitchie smiles and she knows she couldn't dream up this girl. This is real.

Alex is real.

As unbelievable as it is, this is happening.

"I just…had this dream. It was so _real _and I could feel his hands," Mitchie expands, getting herself worked up because he won't even leave her alone when he's gone. She wishes she would have worded it differently when Alex's hands drop from her waist. "He got really angry and he…he…"

Alex contains a growl of disgust.

"Did he do something to you?" she bites out and props herself up on an elbow and Mitchie releases her hand. Mitchie shakes her head and presses her cheek into the pillow beneath her. "Mitchie, what did he do to you in your dream?"

"I'm fine now, it's okay," Mitchie murmurs.

Alex hasn't asked what happened yet and she wants to know, but she's in no hurry. Part of her wants to leave it to her own imagination because knowing makes it too real, but her mind works in torturous ways that keep her up late at night, thinking about what ifs. Questioning Mitchie's dream is a step forward for her. She won't probe, though.

She expels a heavy sigh and flops down onto her back, forearm thrown haphazardly over her eyes.

"…Are you mad?" Mitchie asks so painfully quiet.

"At you? Like that's even possible."

Mitchie stays silent, watching Alex's breathing even out back to normal. She's noticed that Alex takes deep, soothing breaths when she gets angry and Mitchie wonders if it's a habit she's always had or if she's recently adopted it so as not to lose it in front of her. Something tells Mitchie that Alex does it for her.

She doesn't know how long it's been since Alex had found her and told her _'eyes open, chin up' _but she still feels him there, like he's across the room watching her, waiting for her. Just the thought of it scares her enough for her hand to reach over and grip the hem of Alex's tee because she knows Alex won't let him touch her. There's a sense of comfort she gets from being next to her, even only having physical contact with her shirt, like it makes her feel protected.

Alex lifts her arm from her eyes at the feel of tugging near the bottom of her shirt and she nearly cracks like overheated glass at the sight of Mitchie curled next to her a few inches away, holding the fabric in a clenched hand with closed eyes. Like a picture left in the attic that feels safer beneath a coat of dust than in the hands of the one who had forgotten about it. She doesn't hesitate in slipping her hand back into Mitchie's in place of her shirt and the silent exchange gives Mitchie the confidence to eliminate the gap between them so she's flush against Alex's side.

"God, I hate him, Mitchie," Alex groans, almost whimpers, pressing her free palm over her eyes out of exasperation before combing her fingers through her bangs. She wants to scream at the sky and she has no face to blame. The helplessness is beginning to take its toll on her because as badly as she wants to, she can't change the past and it's only another thing she has to add to her mental checklist of things she _can't_ do.

She can't undo what's happened to Mitchie.

It kills her that she can't do a thing.

"Me too," Mitchie whispers.

Alex doesn't let go of her hand.

--x--

Now, without the weight of fatigue to shadow the details of things around her, Mitchie eagerly glances about Alex's room, visually rifling through the easel propped in a corner parallel to the bed, pages torn and frayed from it. Various paintbrushes, old and new, are strewn around and Mitchie can picture Alex tossing them to and fro in a fit of creativity. The small couch has a splatter-painted sheet cast over it that wasn't there before, or at least Mitchie hadn't noticed it, and sketchbooks decorate the floors and nearly every other surface in the room, some flipped open, others closed. All of them seem used.

Framed paintings line the walls in a chaotic manner, every one angled crookedly. She would have thought Alex to be a poster kind of girl who plastered their walls with magazine cutouts, but this seems to personify her much better.

Alex emerges from her closet with an 'aha!' and a hoodie slung over her arm.

"This one should fit you," she hands it to Mitchie before pulling her own hood up over her head.

"Thanks," Mitchie says softly, slipping the sweatshirt around her small frame. She ducks slightly when Alex reaches over the lift Mitchie's hood as well.

"It's pretty gnarly outside today, you're gonna want to wear this," Alex defends, lightly tugging on the strings to tighten the hood.

Mitchie's breath hitches a fraction as Alex's hands linger, but she directs her attention back to the paintings on the wall.

"Did you make those?" she questions in awe.

"Psh, _no_," Alex recovers, shaking her head. "I never hang up my own stuff."

"Why not?"

"'Cause then I'm stuck staring at them for hours and I notice all the things wrong with them. The longer I look at my own paintings, the more imperfect they seem. If I hang someone _else's_ work, though, I get to scrutinize them without damaging my _arteest_ feelings."

Mitchie laughs, expecting something a bit more profound. But, as she thinks it over, it actually is.

"I bet your paintings are perfect," Mitchie smiles, fingering the strings on her hoodie.

Something dawns on Alex for a moment and she reaches back into her closet to retrieve two scarves, handing one to Mitchie.

"Change of plans, we're not going to the park. I want to show you something," she weaves her scarf complicatedly around her neck as she speaks and Mitchie delicately touches her fingertips to Alex's knuckles, effectively stopping her.

"Here," she unties the scarf from around Alex's hoodie and slips it directly around her neck instead, tying it snugly in place in a much more fashionable manner. "It'll be more comfortable like that."

"Er, thanks," Alex says around a nearly dreamy smile. Her brain comes to a stop like squealing rubber tires on pavement at the contact and she shakes her head as a kickstart to her thoughts. "Now, c'mon, if we're quiet we can get through the house without my family noticing."

"Won't they wonder where you are?"

"Probably. It's nothing new, believe me."

She catches Mitchie's wrist and opens her door, peeking her head around the corner to check for any witnesses.

"Okay, coast is clear. Just follow my lead."

Mitchie allows Alex to pull her out of the room and she consciously wonders if she should shut the door behind her, but decides against it when it occurs to her that it would only be another noise to get them caught. Alex considers it a checkpoint once they reach the stairs and she steps with her toes first down each step, still cautiously holding Mitchie's wrist. The front door is in sight as they near the living room and Alex can hear the victorious bells chiming before a voice dislocates the record in her mind and rudely interrupts her mental fist pump.

"Alex, where are you going?" the one time Alex desperately wishes for it to be Justin, it of course is not and she figures she'll have to punish him for something nonexistent later. She whirls around with a guilty smile.

"Oh, just, ya know, out," Alex says with a shrug, motioning toward the door with her unoccupied hand. She plays it casual for a moment, surging to the exit that seems to be shrinking, shrinking as her mom interrupts her once more.

"No-no-no, I don't think so," Theresa takes a step toward her, mindful of Mitchie's presence, but she figures she'll proceed through this one step at a time. "You ran off during your shift, Justin saw you hand a coffee pot to a customer and tell him to keep the change. We're not going to have a business if you keep treating people like that!"

"Well, the guy didn't have to take it, he was perfectly willing and he only said 'ma'am, wait' one time, so he couldn't have been that concerned," Alex reasons, unaffected. After all, her hour had passed and she'd made a promise that she was dead set on keeping. Anything beyond that fell upon deaf ears.

Accustomed to Alex's antics, Theresa releases a long sigh, shaking her head. "Oi, what are we going to do with you? Your father is very upset, he had to give more than one customer a free meal because of bad service. We all know how he gets about giving things away."

"Yeah, yeah, he'll be fine. Listen, Mom, I'm really sorry and I swear I'll apologize to Dad later, but we've gotta go," she jabs her thumb over her shoulder to point at the door.

Theresa softens her hardened expression to smile warmly at Mitchie, now addressing the second issue.

"And who is this young lady?" her nonchalance is painfully obvious in trying to ignore Mitchie's beaten face, but both girls can't help to appreciate her effort.

"This is Mitchie, she's a friend from school. I got in late last night because we were out with Harper and Mitchie's parents are out of town for the week so she stayed over," Alex spins the beginning thread of her lie and she knows it's going to blow up in her face sooner or later, but her mom seems convinced for now and that's good enough. "I was wondering if she could stay until they get back, but I haven't really gotten around to asking."

"Sure, yes, of course she can," Alex can't quite tell if Mitchie's being pitied or not. "It's nice to meet you, Mitchie. I'm Alex's mom, Theresa," she extends a hand and Mitchie tugs her own sleeve to hide her marred knuckles before accepting the gesture. Alex's grip grows slightly more possessive on Mitchie's wrist, but with good intention.

"Nice to meet you," Mitchie says sweetly, wincing as her frail hand throbs from the handshake. "Thank you so much for letting me stay here, I figured I'd be fine alone but I guess I overestimated myself," she shapes her words to fit the mold of Alex's fib and the guilt already weighs within her like wax drying on her heart.

"It's no problem, Alex's friends are always welcome here."

"That's because I'm the only child in this house with friends," Alex provides with an obvious tone.

--x--

Alex holds Mitchie's hand as they stroll along the sidewalk and the calm sky is an ocean of uninterrupted blue that balances the fierce wind. It feels as though there are millions of microscopic needles pricking her skin inside out as she thinks over Mitchie's sudden awakening. It does her no good to think about it, it only makes her realize how little she knows but she's unsure of how to fix the problem without knowing the cause. She walks closest to the street like a complete gentleman, jaw raised and eyes lost to thought and it makes Mitchie want to do something like kiss her on the cheek. So she does.

Her lips graze Alex's soft skin and Alex's footsteps slow as her eyes widen at the affectionate gesture.

"What was that for?" she questions, pressing a hand to her heated cheek and Mitchie lowers herself from her tiptoes.

"You're sweet, Alex," Mitchie looks toward the sky. "You're not just the girl who noticed me in the street like I thought you would be."

"I haven't done anything you don't deserve," the prickling dissipates and her veins feel like lava is sluggishly coursing through them, any vengeful thoughts swept away with the wind at the touch of Mitchie's lips. Softer than petals.

"How do you know that? You're so content with knowing almost nothing about me."

The answer comes easily, like she's breathing with the wind.

"Because I trust you."

A lot seems to revolve around that one word and Mitchie wants to become a part of the rotation.

"Is it that easy?"

"It is for me. I'm just as in the dark as you are, Mitchie, but I have no reason to make this even harder with walls. You have plenty of reasons," Alex traces Mitchie's black eye, willing it away to no avail. "And you have plenty of time. I'll wait for you to trust me."

The gentle patience that Alex has is hard not to trust and Mitchie knows Alex won't be waiting for long.

"How has it only been one day?" Mitchie leans into Alex, gingerly holding onto her arm as they continue walking.

"I'm in permanent denial, there's no way I haven't known you forever."

"It feels that way," Mitchie smiles, gazing down at her feet. She's still unable to maintain eye contact for long, even though her insecurities are close to meaningless when Alex draws little shapes on the back of Mitchie's hand with her thumb.

Alex suddenly veers to the right, leading them into an abandoned alleyway that harbored a crumbling set of concrete stairs. Mitchie peers hesitantly into the tunnel that the stairway connects to and it's nearly pitch black. The entire area looks worn and forgotten, she feels a sudden bond immediately.

"Alex…um," Mitchie steps back nervously.

"Hey, I'm right here," she says softly and Mitchie clutches her arm closer to her body. "Don't worry, you're gonna love this."

Alex begins the descent down the stairs and Mitchie follows closely, squinting her eyes in the darkness.


	7. Chapter 7

I'm baaaack! Hopefully. I don't know, you guys will have to tell me, 'cause this certainly didn't come out the way I wanted. But after a month of writing it over and over, I think it's time to post. Again, thank you from the depths of my ~soul for reading.

--x--

_Colorblind_

_Chapter Seven;_

They've only just begun their adventure and Mitchie's excited to learn more about the fascinating girl leading her by the hand, but she already feels dizzy with claustrophobia, a fear she's never had. The city outside is a symphony of blaring noises and she feels like she's trapped in traffic; car horns scream at her that aren't there and people that don't exist holler too loudly for how close they sound. Walls spin and clouds are foggy below her feet rather than in the sky as the world churns around her. It's not at all like the pleasant burst of butterflies she's come to be familiar with when Alex smiles at her the way she does. Instead it's suffocating and it doesn't make her blush, it makes her hesitate.

"Alex…I don't…It's dark," Mitchie stammers uneasily, stalling at the third step. Her brows knit and the back of her hand rests woozily over her crinkled forehead.

"I know, it gets better once we're down there, the lights got taken out of this place a long time ago," the sunlight from outside crawls along the tattered brick walls and it's just enough for Alex to see the panic in Mitchie's beautiful dark eyes. Similar to tectonic plates, cracked and unstable and Alex can sense the impending earthquake.

"I can't-"

"Mitchie?"

"I can't see, it's so dark…" Mitchie shoulders the wall, leaning away from Alex and wraps her arms around herself. It's the first time she's let go of Alex since they left home and the fearful way she does it builds up an unsteady wall between them that chills Alex's skin from the cold slap of being rejected. She blames Mitchie for none of it and she patiently keeps her distance. "He's doing it again, he always does this," like the blood that was fleeing her veins last night, her words are bleeding onto Alex's hands.

Mitchie is slipping away from her, sand through open palms and Alex won't let the last grain fall.

"Mitchie, he's not here, I wouldn't let him-"

She doesn't understand where she went wrong and the spaces between her fingers feel too empty.

"He never wants me to see and - and I wish I couldn't," Mitchie's fingers curl into the fabric of her sweatshirt. Holding herself together. "If I was blind, I would never have to see his face and I wouldn't dream about him. I try so hard to forget, but I can't. I can't. I can't do anything."

She's watching Mitchie disintegrate right in front of her and it's too painful for her to keep her hand from touching Mitchie's shoulder.

"Yes, you can," Alex coaxes, rubbing Mitchie's upper arm. She flinches and it produces a backlash that stings no less than the crack of an angry leather whip. "Mitchie…"

"He does it in the dark because they won't see. He knows I won't tell," her breath rattles. "I want to tell."

Overly vivid images flood Alex's mind, an accidental spill of color that blend and swirl to paint moving pictures. She can't fight the horrifying thought of Mitchie trapped in her own room, his hands on her. _Touching_ her. Deaf to her cries and blind to her tears. She tells herself she can blink the thoughts away, but it only makes her see it more clearly and the colors overflow inside of her mind so much that she could swear ink and paint were leaking from her ears and eyes.

The distorted corners of her vision are convincing and she almost believes her own ridiculous theory until she carelessly swabs her knuckles under her eyes to erase the tears she didn't realize she was crying.

"Tell me…" Alex whispers, taking two steps below Mitchie to appear less threatening. Ignoring the throbbing ache because it feels as though they're taking too many steps in the same direction they came from.

"I can't!"

"Why?"

"He'll find me. It won't be a secret anymore if someone knows and he'll hate me," Mitchie cups a hand over her mouth like she's afraid she'll say too much if she doesn't trap the words in her throat. If she doesn't swallow the truth and smile her empty smiles that no one has seen through.

Alex sees through them. She sees them as if Mitchie's lips are transparent glass. And she's disgusted that such poorly disguised happiness has gone unnoticed.

Steel fists hang heavily on either side of her hips and they quiver with her primal need to strike something that will crumble under her hand. The pressure has been building inside of them since last night and she yearns to relieve it so she can empty the anger from cycling inside of her. Picturing his face, she figures her imagination is exaggerating and stereotyping, however, the visual she sees in the confines of her own head is a man she'd have no problem painting red. She's never been violent but the bruises on Mitchie's face both mock her and beg for an escape. Alex wants to give her one so badly it hurts.

"Who is he? Who did this to you, Mitchie? I can't take it, this is just so messed up, you have to tell me who hurt you-"

"_I_ did."

Alex narrows her eyes in disbelief, her forehead wrinkling.

"_What_?"

"I did it, it's my fault."

"Is that what he tells you?"

"It's true, he wouldn't have to hurt me if I was different, if I was someone else-"

"Mitchie, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! This is _not_ your fault! He's a sick motherf-" Alex's teeth catch her bottom lip to filter out the curse word and her tense shoulders collapse as she casts her eyes to stare at the brick wall. The plastered lines between each brick look a little bit like a maze and she only feels more lost. "Whatever he's told you, he's wrong."

"I just want to be someone else," Mitchie whispers and Alex aches.

"You can. You won't be the girl he-" Alex pauses because the word _hurt_ does nothing to verbalize _this_, this thing that seems too real for words. Words are for fairytales and stories that will never happen and Alex has always had a preference for pictures. "You won't be the girl you were when you were with him. You'll be so much stronger. You can do this," Alex entwines their hands between them with a gentle certainty that seals her words into a promise. "We can do this."

Those eyes tell Mitchie everything she's ever dreamed of hearing and she feels so naked beneath their stare, as though they've watched her fall and stuck around to be sure she got back up. They look at her like they're a part of every story Mitchie's scars have ever told.

Unlike every other time she's forfeited, this feels like the right choice and she slumps forward as Alex catches her from under her arms, pulling their bodies together and Mitchie grips the front of Alex's sweatshirt in her bruised fists. Alex rests her chin atop her head and leans her back against the weathered wall behind them, sighing with relief, eyes fixed to the ceiling.

"I'm scared," Mitchie rasps. The material her face is pressed into swallows her voice but she's still heard.

Alex's furiously beating heart breaks.

"I know," she whispers, cradling the back of Mitchie's head against her chest. Their fear is impossible to compare, but Alex has never been so terrified. She traps her own confession of fear behind her lips for Mitchie's sake. She will be strong.

Mitchie doesn't cry this time and Alex feels stupid when she has to swipe the wrist of her sleeve across her cheek because she's not the one with reasons to cry, but she can't help it. It hurts. With a terribly concealed sniffle and a sigh into Mitchie's hair, she tries to think of how to verbalize her guilt while Mitchie grips onto her as if someone's trying to drag her off by the ankles.

"This was stupid, I shouldn't have brought you down here. We can go home and watch a movie or something." The protective circle of her arms is pointless, she thinks. This is her fault, but she holds Mitchie because she doesn't know how to protect her from herself and because she needs it, too. The entire conversation has been a string of fragmented, interrupted sentences that did nothing more than mentally return Mitchie back to a place Alex will never let her see again.

"It wasn't stupid. I don't - _he_ just -" she trips over her thoughts again and Alex hushes her with a gentle finger to Mitchie's lips.

"Let's not talk about him."

Mitchie nods.

"Do you want to keep going? You don't have to, I'll take you back home, it's no big deal."

And then Mitchie's warm hand is on her cheek and all composure is lost on Alex for a moment as her lips part in surprise. It's not by much, but there's a distinct difference in height between them that Mitchie adjusts to with a tilt of her head. Her thumb passes over Alex's skin and Alex's eyes flutter as she surrenders to Mitchie's careful touches until she regains her self-control. Everything about her is so delicate, so easy to say yes to, whether it's with words or not.

She wonders if it's dangerous that she wouldn't be able to deny Mitchie much of anything.

Alex's body language is a giveaway to her nervousness and Mitchie calms her with a smile that reaches her eyes. They shine as Mitchie's hand drifts from her cheek down to her scarf, tugging on it while she takes a step back and Alex can feel the atmosphere transitioning around them.

"Take me there," she says excitedly, threading a hand through Alex's. "We came this far, come on," she pulls Alex down the remainder of the stairs, stopping abruptly at the base of them as Alex bumps into her back with an _'oof'_.

"What's wrong, Great Expeditionist? Lose your map?" Alex maneuvers around her, a shimmer in her eyes that prompts another real smile from Mitchie. There's no transparency and Alex feels herself smiling in return.

"Nah," Mitchie shakes her head, squeezing Alex's hand. "She's right here."

"Make sure you keep track of her down here," Alex smirks, walking backwards and watching the light fade from the planes of Mitchie's face, pulling her along by their abridged hands. Leading her away from the world that's punished her without reason.

"I'd be pretty lost without her."

The corners of Alex's mouth slip downwards and her smirk disappears, her footsteps gradually slowing.

"Well, I think that she's kind of lost, too," she absently toys with Mitchie's fingers in her hand. "But she's not so directionless with you around and she's trying."

The scuffing of their shoes against the pavement is suddenly louder than it was before and Alex studies Mitchie's face, how pale her skin is and how pretty it makes her. She didn't ever really get what the appeal was in being tan, she thinks Mitchie looks perfect. The cloud of a bruise under her eye is stark against her paleness and even the outer radius of it is a deep shade of purple that wouldn't be noticeable on most people. Even though hands she wants to break put it there, it has her respect. She'll wait for it to decide that Mitchie's been hurt enough for it to heal. She'll wait for the maps of Mitchie's scars to fade.

A few more steps and the light flooding from outside can't reach them anymore, engulfing them in complete darkness and leaving them to rely on touch and Alex's memory. All she can think of is the way Mitchie had been staring back at her like Alex's thoughts were being said aloud, repeating how beautiful she was.

Alex can hear the seconds pass like a heartbeat underwater. The ripple effect leaves a wave of goosebumps on her skin.

"Tell me you feel that," Mitchie whispers and Alex continues walking backwards, slower now, listening for anything Mitchie might hear that she doesn't.

"Feel what?"

Mitchie slowly draws their knotted hands to her chest, pressing Alex's open palm just below the center of her collarbone with her two hands and her feet root themselves to the ground. The pounding rhythm beneath Alex's fingertips harmonizes her own heartbeat and she finds herself fascinated by the constant pulse contracting under her touch. Her eyes drag slowly upwards to search for Mitchie's, but she's only met with ebony and her heart pumps a little faster.

"That," Mitchie breathes.

"Oh," _oh._ Alex nods uselessly and upon remembering Mitchie can't see her, says "Yeah, I feel that."

She's less than prepared when Mitchie's ear greets her own chest. They're barely touching and she's so winded she could pass out.

"Your heart is pounding," Alex can hear the smile.

She wiggles her fingers where they're still captive under Mitchie's hands, monitoring her reflective heartbeat.

--x--

Alex thinks it's cute, the way Mitchie drags her hands over the paint suffocated walls in awe, admiring, like trying to experience the art secondhand. When Mitchie asks if Alex painted this or that, she likes that she can pompously nod, arms folded over her chest and be proud that someone with an opinion that actually matters to her is impressed with her work. She remains a part of the background, watching, and thinking to herself that if she could ever get her hands on the elements used to create a girl so perfect, she could be a legend. Art is something she's always known to have multiple interpretations and Mitchie isn't an exception. Alex could examine her for hours; Mitchie is nothing like the paintings on her bedroom walls that she grows tired of in a matter of months.

Thoughts unexpectedly elude the barrier of her lips and the exasperated _"Jesus," _is whispered before she can think to take it back. Mitchie turns around with a quizzical expression written on her face that makes Alex's heart panic.

"What'd you say, Alex?"

The widening of her eyes adds to her obviousness, but she still murmurs a swift "Nothing." Brushing hair away from her face that isn't really in the way only makes her act less believable.

"Don't you lie to me," Mitchie playfully narrows her eyes and Alex knows she's joking, but she feels guilty anyway. Mitchie doesn't need to be lied to, no matter how small and harmless it is.

"I was just looking at you," she blurts. Her eyes widen a second time as she registers what she's said and she tries again. "I mean, you're nice to look at." A pause. She thwacks her own forehead. "Like, you're really pretty," she finishes, painfully humiliated, but she smiles awkwardly anyway.

"Hey, I said not to lie to me," a weak laugh escapes Mitchie and her smile goes from genuine to nervous, then slips completely from her face.

"You're the last person I'd lie to," her reply is natural and it's already out of her mouth before her mind even finishes processing the thought.

"Alex…"

"I'm serious, you're beautiful, Mitchie."

"I'm not…"

"_Please_ tell me you're joking."

A hand rises to cover her bruised eye. "No, these stupid bruises…"

Alex takes a few steps forward, unveiling Mitchie's eye by grasping her wrist and bringing her hand back down. "Come on, you're too pretty to hide your face like that."

"People stare."

"They don't understand."

Mitchie shakes her head, wrist still caught in Alex's hand between them.

"But you do."

Alex feels herself knocked back by those few words because they've come to an understanding of one another so quickly and so thoroughly. She hadn't been sure that it was mutual until now and she splays Mitchie's hand over her heart and nods.

"Yeah."  
_  
I understand._

Mitchie's back grazes the mural behind her and the oxygen between them is thin as they breathe each other's air. The jackhammer beneath Alex's ribcage echoes down to the tips of her toes; her pulse throbs all over her body.

"Tell me you feel that," she whispers, so close that Mitchie can feel her breath on her lips.

Mitchie can smell the vanilla on Alex's neck as Alex leans into her, resting a hand just above her head to the left on the wall. She releases Mitchie's wrist, curving the palm of her now free hand around the jut of her hip. Her eyes haven't left Mitchie's, she's waiting for any sign to stop before she won't be able to.

Mitchie's breaths are shallow and frequent and the dim lights behind Alex's head are blending into a haze that makes her dizzy. The world seems to tilt on its axis beneath her feet and she clutches onto Alex's bicep to keep her grounded. Or maybe just to touch her, she can't be sure.

The whole scenario is startlingly similar to her nightmare and her bruises object as she melds more closely to the wall behind her. She breaks eye contact and it's like snapping a power line, an orange shower of sparks and crackling energy. Alex cranes her neck and hangs her head, mouth brushing Mitchie's ear.

"It's okay," her words are hot and they cascade along the shell of Mitchie's ear. "You can say no."

Mitchie's muscles stiffen and knots of heated wire tie themselves tighter below her stomach.

"I'm not him. You tell me to stop and I'll stop," she winds a ringlet of Mitchie's hair around her slim finger before tucking it behind her ear. "Just don't be scared of me, Mitchie. There's no one who is more on your side than I am."

Mitchie can feel her conscious mind slipping as her eyelids tire and the storm inside of her ribcage thunders with every beat of her heart. The arm dangling at her side reaches up to grab onto Alex's opposite forearm and she lies heavily against the concrete wall.

"I don't get it, but you do something to me," Alex doesn't seem to mind that Mitchie isn't answering her. Her eyebrows are drawn together in a confused frown as she tries to decipher what she's thinking enough to translate it all into words. "I can barely breathe with you this close to me and I'm not _Shakespeare_ but I think that means something. I know you. There's just no way a stranger can do this to me."

Mitchie's knees are beginning to tremble and she can't fathom any other possible way to support herself, but finds that she doesn't have to. Alex slides her hand between Mitchie's lower back and the wall, a place she knows is free of injury, and wraps the length of her arm around her waist as two fingers hook into Mitchie's belt loops.

"You're shaking," she exhales.

Mitchie reluctantly lets go of Alex's upper arm to interweave her hand in Alex's hair just above the nape of her neck out of silent explanation concerning her wavering legs. She thinks Alex is starting to get it with how her face dawns a slow realization, eyes slightly unfocused. But she makes no further advances, she only watches Mitchie struggle to breathe, her own lungs fairing off no better.

Alex does get it. And as much as she longs to give in to what she and Mitchie both want, she won't do it in an abandoned train station with her own graffiti breathing life into the walls behind Mitchie. She won't kiss Mitchie with dying lights above their heads.

Alex loves it here, it's her own world where she can paint what she wants to and she can lose herself to her own imagination. She can be dangerous and it won't matter. But she won't let herself go with frail perfection in her arms. She will not risk hurting Mitchie.

She retrieves her arm from Mitchie's lower back and smiles weakly at the confused expression on her face.

"I still have a lot more to show you," Alex says and Mitchie finds her hand again without a word.

--x--

Alex closes her bedroom door with her leg, her oversized pajama pants slung low on her hips as she uses the towel hanging around her shoulders to dry her hair. The sun is beginning to split over the horizon, shards of light intruding through her window and melting diamonds onto her floor and walls. She revels in the breaking dawn for a moment, supporting her back on her door and allowing her toes to sink into her plush, albeit immature carpet. Mitchie's lower body is twisted in her sheets and Alex relaxes more against her door as she watches her sleep.

Before she'd left the tangle of blankets and limbs for her morning shower, she had almost disregarded her alarm when Mitchie whimpered at the loss of contact, hands blindly searching for Alex.

"Sleep," Alex had murmured, tiredly trailing the tips of her fingers down Mitchie's cheek and the other girl blanketed Alex's hand with her own, still asleep.

School is the very last thing on her mind but keeping Mitchie home with her all week would be suspicious to her parents and Mitchie had been against them skipping. She wonders why she's never seen Mitchie in the halls at school before. The fact that she hasn't makes her feel like all of the others.

Mitchie's just so special and maybe that's why Alex notices. Maybe the rest of the world doesn't know what to do with something so beyond them.

Alex turns off the second alarm before it goes off and instead wakes Mitchie by rubbing her back and whispering her name. The girl shifts with a breathy groan that causes Alex to stand a bit straighter for a moment and Mitchie burrows her face further into sheets that smell like the clothes she wears. They smell of Alex.

"Time to get up, Mitch," she scratches her nails nimbly over the fabric of Mitchie's t-shirt below her shoulder blades.

Mitchie lifts her head, looking exhausted but with a small smile.

"Mitch?"

"Mhm," Alex hums, nuzzling her nose against the back of Mitchie's neck as a substitution for the kiss she almost pressed there. "You don't like it? I could call you lots of other things," she says mischievously and Mitchie can feel Alex's teeth graze her neck as she smiles into her skin.

"No, Mitch works."

"'Kay good, 'cause I would've called you that anyways."

--x--

Alex detests Mondays as much as the next person, perhaps more and she finds a new reason to hate them when she has to walk Mitchie to her first period class. A class that they do not have together. A class that she has to walk away from without taking Mitchie.

She's been tired of emptying her mind of public education garbage for months and her notes show off her honed ability to doodle within the margins. Entire cities, oceans, cats with seven eyes.

Today she won't be able to pay attention if she tries.

She's about to ask Mitchie what she has second period to see if they'll have time to meet up in the hall between classes but a voice that makes her cringe worse than nails on a chalkboard stops her before she begins.

"No way!"

Alex whips around.

"Oh, this is _precious_. Alex Russo all buddy-buddy with Torres. You know, Alex, we can't really be honorary rivals if you're going to stoop that low."

Alex doesn't have the patience for Gigi and she doesn't have the self-control to idly listen to anyone hurt Mitchie.

"I'd suggest you shut your whore mouth, Gigi."

"I mean," Gigi drones on, her unappealing valley girl voice tempting Alex to do something violent that she thinks she probably wouldn't regret. "I know you don't have a lot of friends, but you should at least stick to something human. Besides, where's little Harper?"

Alex's fists itch to greet Gigi's jaw. Harper's fallen victim to Gigi just as many times as Alex has, but she takes it harder than Alex does. And Alex doesn't let Gigi push around her best friend any more than she'd let her do it to Mitchie. Harper's name only fuels Alex's anger.

"Mitch, hold my books for a sec," she hands her single notebook and textbook to Mitchie, who takes them willingly but warily.

"Oh, look, you've even got her on a leash," Gigi giggles and her clones echo the mindless, bubbly laughter like little bells.

"Yeah, 'cause _those_," she gestures to the girls flanking Gigi, "totally don't look like poodles that Barbie puked on. Are they your porta-poodles so you can stay skinny for Ken?"

"Better than your mutt."

"If you don't shut your goddamn mouth -"

"_Bow. Wow_."

Gigi's slow spreading smirk is barely born before Alex prematurely murders it with a firm right hook to Gigi's face. The gasps that fill the air come mostly from Gigi's friends and now they sound less like bells and more like balloons being filled with helium. They do nothing to delay a second punch which forcefully gets Gigi past the initial shock that she'd just been punched in the face and her manicured nails dig into Alex's shoulders, reeling her backwards into a set of lockers.

Alex struggles against the restraint and angles her leg to knee Gigi in the stomach, but she feels her shoulders being released and Gigi's hands find her hair instead, yanking and forcefully heaving Alex's head forward to crack the back of her skull against the lockers.

"I can't believe you hit me!" Gigi's hands snarl further in her hair and Alex looks up, sees the blood drizzling miserably from Gigi's nose. She thinks of Mitchie and then her stomach lurches and she feels sick.

"I told you to shut up," Alex mutters hoarsely. "I told you to shut your fucking mouth, you don't talk about Mitchie like that," her chest rises and falls with each heavy breath. Sweat has broken out on her forehead.

"What are you, a psycho?" Gigi relieves her tight hold of Alex's hair, preparing to step back but Alex catches her collar. Tugs her closer.

"I don't like you, Gigi. I really don't like you," Alex says lowly. "But I don't hate you. You're pushing it, though, and I swear if you don't leave her alone, I'm not just going to sit back and listen to it. Say what you want about me, but you leave her be."

Gigi says nothing and Alex raises her eyebrows, challenging.

"Okay, fine, whatever," Alex unhooks her fingers from Gigi's collar and the girl smoothes the wrinkles from the front of her shirt.

Alex hadn't thought ahead enough to consider being caught by teachers and her lack of planning comes back to bite her in the form of Mr. Laritate. He's marching toward her, waving his arms in the air and she amuses herself for a moment by waiting for a volcano to blow out of the top of his head as she observes his crimson face. Lava doesn't spurt from his receding hairline, but her name explodes from his mouth, molten and angry.

"_Alex Russo_!"

She flashes him a smile, bending her knee to rest the sole of her shoe upon the locker she leans against, arms crossed.

"Mr. Laritate," she greets him with an informal nod.

"Do _not_ Mr. Laritate me," he bellows and she's only more tickled by the fact that he's freaking out over her hitting Gigi. He should have been expecting it sometime soon.

"What would you prefer I call you, sir? Enlighten me."

"Russo, my office, _now_," he jams his finger to the right, directing her down the hallway as he shoos away the congregation of students that have gathered, including Gigi's followers.

She scoffs, pushing herself off of the lockers and saunters past Gigi, "Like, oh my God, your bloody nose totally matches your lipstick."

"Office!" Mr. Laritate thunders again and Alex salutes him before he worriedly escorts Gigi down the hall to the nurse's office.

Alex watches them leave then turns around to find Mitchie timidly clutching her books to her chest, looking a little traumatized. Her sarcastic smirk dissipates and the hard eyes she'd been drilling into the depths of Gigi's empty soul soften to warm liquid brown again and she wants to apologize.

"Mitchie, I…" she doesn't have any explanation and a sigh replaces any words that might have justified her behavior.

"Are you alright? That looked like it hurt," Mitchie winces.

"What, me? I'm fine," Alex casually rubs the back of her neck, flinching as she passes over her inflamed scalp from being slammed into the lockers. "Completely fine," she smiles, visibly affected by Mitchie's concern.

Mitchie watches her for a moment, not very convinced.

"That was kind of awesome," she bites her lip, corners of her mouth curving up into a shy smile.

Alex reflects a similar smile back at her, whispering excitedly, "It so was."

"Gigi sucks."

"Gigi's a freakin' Hoover," Alex says. "You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that."

"You stood up for me," Mitchie hides her returning smile behind the books she's carrying and Alex doesn't think she could get any more adorable.

"I wasn't lying when I said I might lose it if someone hurt you again. Kind of a bonus that it was Gigi."

She's not alone, she realizes. She's got Alex, who will break noses for her and paint worlds for her. The halls aren't as empty as they once were.

"Definitely a bonus," she murmurs in retrospect. "But now you're in trouble," she grimaces, handing Alex's books back to her.

"Don't tell me you're worried about that? Seriously, it was worth it," Alex tucks her books under her arm and her gaze follows Mitchie's hand longer than she intended, she's still not used to how neglected they are. She absently wonders how they're so soft. "Well, I can hear Laritate's office door snarling at me from here, I'll see you after class if I make it out of there alive."


	8. Chapter 8

HEY GUYS! So I'm really sorry this took over a month to post. And I'm going to apologize in advance for the quality of this chapter. I promised I was going to update today and I know this has a lot of room for improvement in the description department (as well as some others), but a promise is a promise! And some pretty important issues had to be covered, which was basically the point of this chapter. So, here it is.

And I also want to thank you guys for all of your reviews and the crazy amount of favourites and alerts this story has received!

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing.

_Colorblind_

_Chapter Eight;_

Alex has never thought that getting out of class would be so damaging to her health. Her boot clad foot taps incessantly on the thinly carpeted floor where she's seated at a single desk that was taken out of the Algebra room specifically for her. All over the wall ridiculous paintings of cowboys tip their hats to her and the spotted cowhide on the brown leather couch near the window is practically begging her to burn it. Her pencils have suffered the wrath of the pencil sharpener again and again as she doodles on the loose leaf paper until the lead is worn down and she has to shred them even more. As hard as it was to drop the habit, she's begun chewing at her nails again.

The dull clock to her right feels like it's measuring days, weeks and months rather than seconds, minutes and hours.

"C'mon, c'mon, _c'mon_," she hisses impatiently, words muffled by the fingertips in her mouth as she wears at her nails with her teeth.

She thinks this punishment is beyond unreasonable. Being locked up in Mr. Laritate's office for In School Suspension and not being able to steal a single glance out into the hallway between classes to just _see her_. Make sure something hasn't swept her away. It's a torture that makes her so anxious her fidgeting has practically become an involuntary action no less important than breathing. A stubby pencil gives way under the pressure of her hand and splinters against the desk, now a shipwreck of snapped wood that Alex doesn't bother to acknowledge with more than a groan at the slowly ticking seconds.

She doesn't know why they didn't just suspend her. At least that way Mitchie wouldn't be so painfully close. She hasn't solved a single equation on her math homework, hasn't begun her English essay, nor has she spared a thought for Physics. In School Suspension is the stupidest thing she's ever heard of and Gigi is extremely lucky that all she walked away with was a busted nose.

Alex's threat had been empty at first, just telling Gigi to shut up like she always did. The evolution of words into actions had been unexpected, but embraced as she had reeled her angled arm back for another punch. She wasn't at all bothered by her _'choice,' _as Laritate had put it.

_After waving Mitchie off, Alex's eyes had made the transition from inviting almond to a muddy landslide that she used to glare the life out of Mr. Laritate with the moment he stepped foot into his office. He noticed, momentarily glared back -- intentionally or not, Alex couldn't tell -- and promptly seated himself at his desk. Hands clasped and glasses positioned too far down the bridge of his nose, he tilted his head to see over the frame of them and Alex ceremoniously folded her arms over her chest._

_"Miss Russo, acts of violence in this school are handled quite differently from your usual vandalisms and failure to attend your classes," he began and Alex gaped. She couldn't really believe he was handling this so critically, he always let her off the hook somewhat. They had a sort of twisted camaraderie that she figured would come in handy during situations like this._

_"Are you seriously telling me right now that I'm the only one in trouble here?"_

_"You initiated it," he said, like that answered her question. Like it was a fact._

_"Uh, ha, um. No. You are mistaken, my dear friend. See, Gigi started it and I had the courtesy to end it. I wouldn't hit her for no reason."_

_"I'm aware she may have said some things to upset you, Alex, but verbal assault is not as severe as physical--"_

_The backs of Alex's knees forced her chair back as she stood up, palms slamming down onto the desk in front of her._

_"Well it should be!"_

_Mr. Laritate calmly slid his glasses up the slope of his nose and Alex's fingers throbbed at his obvious display of ignoring her outburst._

_"Bloodshed is a bit different than a few words."_

_Alex's fingers curled against the wood of his desk, eyes narrowing. As far as she was concerned, Mitchie didn't need to shed any more blood. And really, Gigi's nose job was a little crooked, anyway._

_"What is wrong with you!? No, it isn't! For God's sake, do you not see that Mitchie's got enough bruises? Did you look at her face? And those are just the ones you can see, she doesn't need Gigi making her life a worse hell than it already is!"_

_"I understand that--"_

_Alex could feel her face heat up, could almost feel the smoke rising from her skin._

_"No," she shook her head. "You don't understand. Don't ever say that you do, because I've held that girl and watched her cry herself to sleep. I've seen every bruise on her body and I've seen how scared she is. I've seen so many scars, Mr. Laritate, so __**do not **__tell me that you fucking understand," she punctuated firmly, though her ribcage felt ransacked because she was exposing her own vulnerability._

_For a moment, Alex actually had a little faith in him as he appeared to ponder what she'd said._

_"I'm going to have to ask you to refrain from raising your voice and using profanity, Miss Russo."_

_She'd never been more disgusted._

_"-And violence on top of more violence is most certainly not the answer. If you're that concerned about the well-being of Mitchie Torres, adding more punches to the situation doesn't really make sense, now, does it?_

_It makes plenty of sense to Alex. As long as she hits the hardest, what's there to worry about?_

The chime of the school bell gives her no direction, even though she's been thinking about her freedom all day. She feels rooted to the ground.

And the weight of her backpack on her left shoulder is acting as a setback as she kicks Mr. Laritate's office door shut in a way that isn't any different than if she'd spat on it. She scans the stampede of students, one face on her mind.

Then, almost like they're asking for it, someone's hand catches the fabric of her t-shirt on her shoulder and hauls her backwards. She whirls around, ripping herself out of their grasp and her menacing glare focuses enough for her to comprehend that Justin is standing in front of her. He doesn't look surprised or upset, just indifferent. The corners of his mouth are down turned the slightest bit and she's curious, maybe concerned even, but she'll worry about him later because she's too oversensitive to handle other people's emotions until she finds Mitchie.

"Alex, it's okay, I've got her," she watches his mouth move, then trails her gaze to the length of his arm down to his hand which has Mitchie's fingers between the empty spaces of his.

It's one of those only times she feels as though she doesn't tell Justin that she loves him often enough. One of those rare moments caused by a momentary lapse in judgment and wrongly placed affection.

"Mitchie," she smiles and the stress melts from her shoulders when Mitchie smiles back, top row of teeth sunken into her bottom lip in a way that Alex knows Mitchie is relieved too. "What's going on, is everything okay?"

Now Justin is looking pissed and Alex quirks an eyebrow, blood already beginning to rush faster through her veins.

"Yeah, everything's fine. Some stupid guys in my grade were giving her a hard time in the halls."

At this, Mitchie's eyebrows draw together in question and her brown eyes fill with confusion.

"Who?" Alex blurts.

"It's nothing, Justin walked me from my locker, I'm okay," Mitchie interjects as Justin releases her hand. He stiffly coils his fingers into a fist and his eyes snag Alex's; she thinks he's trying to tell her something that he can't say aloud just yet, but she's struggling to understand.

"I don't like those words being thrown around about a girl," Justin jams a hand into his jeans pocket to occupy it. "I don't like it."

Alex hasn't ever really seen Justin get mad. He's yelled at her a few times, but she's never seen him like this. His eyes are far away and unfocused. Mitchie looks bewildered and it only leaves Alex more confused.

She has the common sense to avoid asking what they said because if Justin is reacting this hotly, she'll probably land herself in detention or suspension. Her mind is the enemy again as she begins to imagine, but she shuns it away as she realizes how useless it is to think about it. She readjusts her backpack on her shoulder and casts Justin a knowing look that he understands as he backs away.

"I'll see you guys at home," neither girl gets a chance to reply before he's faded into the sea of teenagers and become a part of the flow down the school hallways.

Alex watches him go, a crinkle between her eyes. She almost reaches for him before thinking better of it and directing her attention back to the girl she'd been worried sick over for the better portion of the day.

Mitchie doesn't seem too affected as she leans forward, one hand clutching her backpack strap, "How was prison?"

"More like solitary confinement," Alex scoffs. "It was fantastic. I filled every page of homework I had with my own visual distractions. There's so many doodles I don't think I can look at a pencil for a week."

"They don't appreciate your artistic and creative ability. If they did, they'd know you were so unique you didn't even need to complete your assignments with words," Mitchie adds comically, but with a lacking confidence.

Alex laughs, "You are so perfect."

--x--

"This one," Alex drags the tip of her index finger along the small expanse of pale, raised and bumpy skin that's scarred onto Mitchie's inner forearm. "Looks like a banana," the whisper touches Mitchie's ear and she smiles, inspecting the fruit shaped blemish because she'd always thought it looked like something else. She thinks it must take an artist's eye to see scars as anything but ugly.

"It kinda does," Mitchie twists her arm to see the scar from a different angle.

"Ooooh, when you turn it like that, it looks like a smiley face," Alex says, genuinely intrigued which sparks a laugh from Mitchie.

"What's a smiley face with no eyes?"

"Um…a smiley?"

Mitchie turns her head to loll her tongue out at Alex and she feels the arm draped over her shoulders pull her a little closer as Alex mimics the gesture. The television adds white noise to the atmosphere and she can hear Jerry talking to Justin in the kitchen as Theresa bustles between countertops and cabinets while she prepares dinner for the family and their extra member. Sitting on the far right end of the couch, she can feel the other girl strain next to her as Alex reaches for the small table beside them.

"Whatcha doin'?"

"Just making myself right," Alex mumbles, a marker cap clamped between her lips. A moment later Mitchie glances down at her arm as Alex caps the marker and she finds two blue eyes drawn above the crescent scar. "There, now it's a smiley face."

Mitchie runs her thumb over the quickly drying ink as it's absorbed into the tiny cracks of her skin. This is the first time any of her scars have smiled back at her. She doesn't think Alex did it for the purpose it's actually served to Mitchie, but it's a memory, one she can associate with her imperfections and not have to hate it.

"Mitchie, can I… ask you something?" her mouth is still close to Mitchie's ear and the husky quality of her voice has this never failing ability to postpone her thoughts and thicken the air.

Mitchie shrugs and she's thankful that Alex can't see her face because she feels dazed.

"Okay."

"How'd you get this one?" Alex's fingertips ghost over the small scar, building some sort of connection with it through touch that constructs a shiver at the base of Mitchie's spine.

"Well, I… I said no. So he grabbed my arm and his thumb left that, and -"

Alex listens, tilting her head forward carefully to catch what Mitchie's saying. She can easily tell she's having a hard time getting the words out because they come out unevenly, some quick breaths taken between. But it's a breakthrough; Alex is slowly gathering shreds of information to ultimately figure out the bigger picture. She soothingly rubs a hand up and down Mitchie's bicep as she stutters.

"And?" she whispers, resting her chin gently on Mitchie's shoulder.

"Dinner girls!" Theresa chirps from the kitchen and Alex watches dumbly with a lump in her throat as Mitchie stands from the couch.

--x--

Friday is Alex's last day of In School Suspension and so Harper appropriately decides that it needs to be celebrated. Her suggestions are expectantly shot down (a jewelry-making party, a tea party, a dance party.) Alex has nothing against dance parties, but she's not into Folk or Opera and either is 100% of the normal teenage population, so she votes no. Plus, parties tend to expand and when it comes to Mitchie, Alex simply doesn't like sharing.

And then Mitchie opens her genius mouth and says "We could go roller-skating?"

Alex throws her arm around Mitchie's shoulders in a sideways hug that she takes as a sign of approval.

"This girl is Picasso."

Harper gives her a look.

"Don't you mean Einstein?"

"No, _ew_. Einstein made math and science. I hate math and science. Picasso is way better."

"Well, technically he didn't _make _anything, he discovered --"

"Ugh! Shhhh!" Alex grips the roots of her hair. "You're killing my brain with all of this technical mumbo-jumbo. It's Friday, there will be no talk of 'historical scientific discoveries.'"

"Sorry, Alex, I know how mentally fragile you are when it comes to _learning,_" Harper offers the apology with sarcasm rather than sincerity.

"And I know how fragile a dress made of soup labels is. Gosh, it would just be awful if it started raining on our way to the roller rink…" Alex draws a teardrop down her own cheek with the tip of her pointer finger and pushes out her bottom lip.

Harper gasps and this is definitely one of those times she's wishing magic wasn't real and that maybe her best friend was a little less prone to pranking.

"You wouldn't!"

Alex simply shrugs, batting her eyelashes innocently with a smile and Harper corrects herself;

"You would."

She eyes Alex suspiciously, glancing down to see that she is wearing sneakers. Her wand would never fit inside a tiny pair of sneakers. The chain of thoughts becomes a chain of questions that she'd been absently wondering for a few days now, and this is the perfect opportunity to ask.

"Hey, Alex, can I talk to you for a sec?"

"Well, yeah, but whaddya call what we've been doing the for past -- ow!" Harper offers Mitchie an apologetic smile and grabs Alex by the inside of her elbow, yanking her into the hallway. "Jeez, _what_?" Alex rubs the juncture between her forearm and bicep, stepping back irritably.

"You were at the old subway station on Tuesday after school."

"…Yeah? You know I go there all the time. And Mitchie likes it, she was helping me with some new ideas."

"Tuesdays are, _ya know_," Harper holds an imaginary object in her right hand, waving it around before pretending to bop Alex on the nose with the end of it.

"…Do you have new medication?"

"No! Tuesdays are when you have wizard studies!"

Alex's eyes widen and she claps a hand over Harper's mouth, gaze darting left and right.

"Are you crazy!?" she whispers and Harper frantically shakes her head at the obviously rhetorical question. "Keep your voice down!"

Harper pries Alex's hand off her mouth, "You've been skipping?" she scolds.

"No - well, yeah, but I have permission. Dad has my wand."

"…So wait a second, you haven't had your wand all week?"

"Not since last Saturday," she slowly turns around to make sure Mitchie isn't within hearing distance. "It's not like I could carry it around with me, Mitchie would want to know what it was. What am I supposed to do? 'Don't worry, I'll protect you, I'm a _wizard_.'"

Harper's face slowly transforms from astonished into a spreading smile. She sways with that goofy expression on her face for a moment.

Alex frowns, confused. "What?"

"You're a softy," she pokes Alex playfully between her collarbones.

"Wha - I am _not_."

Harper grins, eyes crinkling. "Yes, you are. Mitchie's making you mushy. You caa-aaare," she sings and Alex diverts her eyes, crossing her arms.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You really are growing up," Harper presses a dramatic palm to her chest, feigning a sniffle. "It seems like just yesterday you were throwing Justin's underwear out into the streets of New York."

"That was last week --"

Harper babbles on, ignoring her. "Time goes by so fast! I'm so proud of you, Alex. You _do_ have feelings!" she pinches Alex's cheeks.

Alex tears Harper's hands from her face. "Oh, you're _hilarious," _her eyes narrow. "Look, I just can't afford to freak her out with this. If she doesn't trust me, she doesn't have anyone. Maybe I'll tell her someday but right now is just not an option. I already talked to Max and Justin to make sure they don't slip up in front of her, _please_ tell me you'll do the same?"

Harper skims her thumb and pointer finger over her lips in a zipping motion.

"Secret's safe with me."

--x--　

"You sure you're feeling up to this?" Alex asks, warily looking out at the rink dotted with people and technicolor lights. A giant disco ball spins overhead, reflecting colors and shapes all over the walls and floors. Music pumps from various speakers and Alex can feel the vibrations like they're shaking her skin free from her bones. She's surprised her voice doesn't waver.

"Yes, stop worrying," Mitchie touches a hand to Alex's arm and it's so domestic that she's barely able to pay any attention to the rest of what comes out of Mitchie's mouth. "I'm not going die or something. It's a roller rink," she says gently.

Alex lifts her eyes from Mitchie's hand to see her face, her black eye changing shades with each spin of the disco ball above them.

"I know, but a girl's got reasons to worry," she gives a pointed look to Mitchie's side, where her gash is beginning to accept healing. It's a weird transition, trying to act responsible. She feels like Justin and that thought is a little revolting.

"Let's just forget about that stuff tonight," Mitchie can see Harper maneuvering semi-gracefully through the ring of people on her roller-skates. "Okay?"

"I'll try."

"Hey, you guys! Come on!" Harper swoops in past the guard railing of the rink, grabbing

Alex's hand with her right and Mitchie's hand with her left.

"Careful, Harp--" Alex begins, but Mitchie turns to her with pleading eyes that tell her she's fine. She smiles and lets it go, allowing Harper to pull the both of them into the mass of skating couples, people skating backwards and crisscrossing their legs like there's nothing to it.

Mitchie is a wonder on skates, Alex quickly notices. She's hesitant at first, but soon enough she's weaving her legs and skating lazy circles around Alex and Harper with a smile on her face that makes it easier for Alex to think there really isn't anything to worry about. Alex keeps a mellow pace, content with watching Mitchie because she just looks so free and so happy.

Her hair has this wave to it that frames her jaw line and Alex isn't sure if it's the charged atmosphere, but she wants to pull Mitchie in by the waist and kiss her. The urge is even stronger than it was when she had Mitchie pinned against the wall down at the subway last weekend and she's afraid that if she gets close enough, she'll act on her thoughts.

All of these voices surrounding her, all of these people she doesn't know. The possessive part of her wants them all to know that Mitchie is hers and she wants so badly to advertise it, but the fact is Mitchie's _not_ hers.

Her train of thought is quickly derailed when Harper nudges Alex's shoulder, "Hey, isn't that Justin?"

Alex snaps her head in the direction Harper was gesturing toward and the lights spin because her eyes want to be elsewhere, but eventually they catch up to conclude that is indeed Justin leaning against one of the small tables near the concession stand area.

"What's he doing here?" she mumbles too lowly for Harper to hear. He didn't look like he had any intention to skate which she found odd. Upon following his gaze, she noticed he was watching Mitchie. "He's been acting so weird lately, why's he just staring at her like that?"

"Maybe he's playing the overprotective older brother?" Harper shrugs.

"Pffft, that's a good one. Whatever it is, it's creepy," her palms skim across the guard rail until she slows to a stop. "You stay with Mitchie, I'm gonna go talk to him."

Alex makes her way to Justin and he appears to stare right through her, not even acknowledging her presence until she waves a hand in front of his face.

"Hey, what's your deal?" she plops down into a seat at the table he's leaning on.

"Nothing, just hanging out," he doesn't look at her and she wants to make fun of him for using a phrase like _'just hanging out'_ because this is _Justin. _

"At the roller-rink. By yourself. Without skates?"

He sighs and finally turns to make eye contact with her and she hadn't really noticed how tired he's looked lately.

"I'm keeping an eye on you guys."

She can't help but poke fun at him anyways.

"Why? Are you going to scare away pedophiles with your manly algebraic equations? Math Club is not Fight Club, Justin."

"No," he doesn't defend himself, he sounds stoic. "Alex, I know Mitchie Torres. Pretty sure you do, too."

"Well, yeah, she's been staying with us for a week," Justin still isn't paying much attention to her, so she returns the favor and she sees Harper teaching Mitchie a ridiculous move that involves flailing limbs and Harper's tongue sticks out in concentration. Alex leans her cheek against her hand as Mitchie lifts her head and catches Alex in the act of staring. She sends Alex a small wave and a lip-bitten smile that absolutely _kills_ her. Slightly delayed, she wiggles her fingers in return.

"That's not what I mean. Shane Grey is her step-brother."

Alex nearly face plants on the table as her cheek slides away from her hand.

"…_What_?"

"He was hanging around Waverly the other night. I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I think he's the one who did that to Mitchie. I saw him in the parking lot after school on Monday from the window in the science hall. He graduated last year and the only reason I can think of to explain him being there would be to look for Mitchie."

Gigi had dated Shane once and it had been a popular rumor that she had to get a nose job because of him. He wasn't really a big guy, but he was bigger than Mitchie and he'd have an easy time holding her down. Nothing like the monster Alex had been picturing, though he wasn't a ray of sunshine, either.

"That's why you brought Mitchie to me on Monday."

"Yeah."

"Oh, God. So he's been _watching_ us?" suddenly she feels violated and she wonders if this is what Mitchie feels like every day.

"I don't know, but I haven't seen him since last year and now all of a sudden he pops up. He's messed Mitchie up and if he'll do that to his own step-sister, he'll do it to my sister."

Alex stares for a moment and he turns to look at her, burdened in ways she's never seen.

"Justin, hey. I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself," she says softly.

"I know, I'm not trying to freak you out. But...Alex, you're my sister. If anything ever happened to you, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself - especially if I knew who he was. It's not that I think you can't handle it, but some guys just don't know when to stop."

She really should appreciate Justin more.

"I'll be fine, if anything just keep your eye on Mitchie. Shane doesn't have anything to do with me, she's the one you should be worried about."

A heavy silence falls over them and it's so powerful Alex hardly registers the music blaring from wall to wall.

"I'm sorry about last weekend, for barging into your room like that. I didn't mean to scare her," he palms the back of his neck, searching for the right words. "I just didn't know who she was and now that she's been staying with us, I feel like she's my little sister or something. She's just so… _sweet, _I don't get how she ended up all..."

"I don't get it, either," Alex murmurs quietly, watching Harper give Mitchie an overenthusiastic highfive. The two of them seem like polar opposites with how outrageous Harper is and how soft spoken and timid Mitchie is, but the friendship they seem to be building is endearing.

Justin clears his throat and hooks a thumb into the pocket of his jeans.

"Just watch out, okay? Mom and Dad don't know anything about this and I really don't like keeping secrets, but I don't know what else to do."

"Yeah, I will. Thanks, Justin."

He doesn't say goodbye as he pushes away from the table, but Alex wasn't expecting him to. She doesn't think he's going far, anyway.

She sighs, holding her head in her hands between her knees. All week she'd been driving herself mad trying to imagine what this guy looked like, if only to satisfy her imagination so she could at least crack him in the face in her thoughts. Picturing Shane's hands on Mitchie brings on a whole new surge of emotions that she doesn't know what to do with.

A hesitant hand on her back causes her to look up and Mitchie is hunched over beside her, looking worried.

"Are you okay?"

"Oh," Alex sits up. "Yeah, I'm fine. Where's Harper?"

"She went to get us some soda," Mitchie straightens and glides backwards until she's standing in front of Alex, one hand outstretched, palm upward and a small smile on her lips. "Come with me."

Alex slips her hand into Mitchie's, feels herself being pulled up and they clumsily bump chests before Mitchie steadies Alex with her other hand, holding both between their bodies. Their pools of brown meet.

Mitchie leads Alex around structure beams and discarded sneakers, abandoned tables decorated with empty cardboard containers. They're not headed in the direction of the arena, instead toward the dimly lit hallway where the bathrooms are located.

Suddenly, Mitchie applies the rubber brake on her skates and Alex continues moving forward, her body twisting to see why Mitchie had stopped. Her brake on her left leg snags the wheels of the skates on her right and the hand she still has linked with Mitchie's pulls the other girl down with her as she tumbles to the hardwood floor. The oxygen is forced from her chest when Mitchie lands directly on top of her, her hair lightly tickling Alex's neck and the orange glow of the hallway reflects softly off of their skin.

Mitchie simply stares as Alex opens her mouth then closes it, again and again. She sees a fear in Alex's eyes that she recognizes well.

"Oh, crap, I'm so sorry, are you okay, Mitch?" she babbles quickly, leaning the weight of her own body on one elbow that she tries to prop herself up with.

"I'm fine, I just, I need," Mitchie breathes, fingers tangling in Alex's hair behind her ear. "I need…" she whispers while Alex's heartbeat thunders beneath her and her eyes finally close as she presses her mouth to Alex's and her heavy breathing dies with the birth of the kiss.


End file.
